[OpenIndiana-discuss] Using OI and zfs from a windows machine

[Edward Ned Harvey (openindiana)]

> From: Robbie Crash [mailto:sardonic.smiles at gmail.com]
> 
> I always see this bandied about. Following the Oracle documentation on how
> to join OI to a domain for the built in CIFS serving has worked for me,
> flawlessly on 10 different OI installations.
> 
> Every time I hear about people with issues with it, they're always using
> Samba. What benefit does using an additional module have over the built in
> CIFS server?

I wasted ages, following oracle documentation, configuring sharesmb, getting crap for results.  Adding a little more info - One of the applications I support is Acronis TrueImage.  A ghost-like whole-system backup software you run inside windows.  When using sharesmb, I was able to access the server just fine to create backups, but that's only half the requirement.  You need to also be able to boot from the rescue media, which is a dos-like environment, and then *read* the backup.  For this, sharesmb was simply failing.  Not making the server visible on the network.  If you don't care about that, there's a good chance your sharesmb experience would be better than mine.


> Is it just that people want to use smb.conf instead of
> managing shares through zfs set sharesmb?

That wasn't a goal, but it turned out to be a positive side-effect.

I found, if I were to manage permissions via solaris ACL's, the implementation is completely different from anything else - so I would have to learn yet another platform specific idiosyncrasy.  Which I would be willing to do, but don't have any specific desire to do.  When I finally gave up and went for samba, I was happy that I didn't need to learn anything.

I seem to recall, there is a simple option to turn off ACL's and use posix permissions instead.  Which is significantly simpler, if you don't need ACL granularity.