[maemo-developers] A Pitch for making SAMBA Server a core part of the N800 OS

[From: Acadia Secure Networks]

Danny,

I have had great success using SAMBA in my lab to "interwork" between a 
RHEL3.0 Linux server running on a Thinkpad570 and my main desktop system 
running Windows XP (as well as other OS's including Vista an Windows 
Server 20003  by means of VMware and Virtual PC).

In those cases where I have had a need to edit files that originated on 
the Linux server (typically .conf files) I simply used Notepad which 
seems to work just fine for the purpose. Also I make use of 
products/apps such as Ethereal where the file contents are structured 
the same whether Ethereal is running on Linux or on Windows. Thus I can 
pull an Ethereal file off of a Linux system and view it on my Desktop 
system using Ethereal on Windows XP.


In fact it would be nice to have a version of Ethereal installable on 
the N800 in order to perform packet capture for later playback on a 
different system.

Depending upon which version and which features the Nokia team chooses 
to implement with respect to Samba, and, assuming they will use Samba 
3.0,  it might even be possible to join the N800 as a member serve in a 
Windows Active Directory domain. See, for example, the recipe at the 
following url:

    http://www.wlug.org.nz/ActiveDirectorySamba


I should add that SAMBA represents one of the great ongoing 
reverse-engineering projects in the Linux world for what has already 
been accomplished up until now and the Samba team is still at it. His 
the url to some recent commentary from a SAMBA team member on how the 
process works:

       
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1243859,00.html

>     Have you ever tried to take a steak away from a rottweiler? Like
>     they say though, if you want to learn French you have to sit in a
>     French café and learn it. All we do [at samba] is stare at packets
>     and network traffic. Active Directory is mostly standardized, so
>     we look at the traffic and see what works. A big thing about Samba
>     and bugs is if Windows does it and we don't it's considered a bug.
>     No Windows client is going to use a port that it wasn't designed
>     to use. It's as simple as that.


Best Regards,

 

John Holmblad

 

Acadia Secure Networks





Danny Milosavljevic wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 22:22:01 -0400, Acadia Secure Networks wrote:
>   
>> I think that making SAMBA a core (i.e. supported by Nokia) part of the 
>> N800 os would greatly facility development, testing, and experimentation 
>> with the N800, at least for those, like me, who work mostly using 
>> Microsoft Windows desktop systems.
>>
>> The ability  to share out the N800 file system to a Windows computer and 
>> thereby have the ability to  inspect/modify files using, e.g. notepad, 
>> would make me more productive. 
>>     
>
> You wouldn't see half of the file flags ("executable" comes to mind) (at least not like a normal human would expect to see them - as a check box with the text "Executable").
> The files you edit wouldn't work (mswindows uses different line endings).
>
> Now of course you can use special windows apps (special editor, special file manager), but then it's not easy anymore.
>
> And my idea of an internet tablet somehow doesn't include it being a file server ;-) Of course, you might see that differently.
>
>   
>> I know I can install SAMBA on my own but 
>> it seems to me that this is, what I would call, a "bread and butter" 
>> capability of a Linux OS that needs to co-exist in the real world of 
>> SMB/CIFS as it is today and, which, will not go away anytime soon.
>>     
>
> Having SMB/CIFS _client_ functionality probably would be useful.
>
> (Time to check whether the source of the file manager is available yet :-) - on second thought, I have ssh access to all my machines, what's the point)
> (Hmm, how about adding SFTP - or just a nice FUSE mount gui - to the file manager? I wonder if I can)
>
> cheers,
>   Danny
>
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>   
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