Doubt on Samba and NFS configuration

[G V R Shankar]

I have doubt on samba and nfs co-existence on a server. I have read couple of posts in the internet and found that nfs and samba doesn’t understand file locking mechanisms of each other.

Following is my requirement

I have a vxfs filesystem /interfaces which is exported to 3 unix servers using nfs

Now the customer, wants to export /interfaces/outbound to 4 windows servers using SAMBA.

Following is the NFS and SAMBA version

CIFS-Server A.02.02.01 HP CIFS Server (Samba) File and Print Services
NFS B.11.23 ONC/NFS; Network-File System,Information Services,Utilities

Can we export /interfaces/outbound using SAMBA? Are there any known issues with NFS and SAMBA

Thank you,

Ravi.

[Rita C Workman]

Interesting,
We run SAMBA here (for Windows to connect to) and we also do NFS and have had no problems with our PARisc or Itanium boxes.

...thought I had it explained to me years ago by an NFS guru that SAMBA basically sits on top of NFS...

Possibly someone out there is aware of such a specific version issue on this so let's hope some real NFS guru's will see this one (hey Mr. Olker...) and pipe in.

Regards,
Rita

[Doug Burton]

An interesting problem. Do you have a URL that points to this issue? Could it be an issue with a different O/S, not HP-UX?

I have not had a problem running both on the same server (11v1) for a few years now.

[G V R Shankar]

Hi,

Thank you for the notes. We have servers nfs and samba are running fine, but, we didn't share the filesystems that are exported between samba and nfs.

In your setup's, do you have a comman FS that is exported thru nfs and samba.

Ravi.

[romano r]

Hi,
I do have since different years the same export on both NFS and SAMBA, we use it to share Unix(HP-UX 11i) files to Windows clients (XP) via smb and among the HP servers via NFS.

It works wery well till now.
Regards
Romano

[G V R Shankar]

Hi Romano R,

Thank you for the note. It gives me good confidence. Can you please share the following.

1. Did you set any variable for file locks in samba configuration
2. What is the samba version
3. Can you please share your samba configuration file.

Thank you,

Ravi

[romano r · Accepted solution]

Hi Ravi,
well
1) no I do not remember to have set something like that
2) version: 2.2.8a based HP CIFS Server A.01.10 Is not the latest :-( on hp-ux 11i
3) attached the smb.conf

Bye!
Romano

[G V R Shankar]

Thank you Romano for sharing the smb.conf and also clarifying my doubt.

I have also recieved the following information from samba tech support team.

Samba and nfs can co-exist on *a* server without problems. There is no problem for a given machine exporting the same file system with both samba and nfs. The problems are when a given machine imports with one service (is in the 'client' role) and exports with the other (is in the 'server' role).

> Following is my requirement
>
> I have a vxfs filesystem /interfaces which is exported to 3 unix
> servers using nfs
>
> Now the customer, wants to export /interfaces/outbound to 4 windows
> servers using SAMBA.

This should not be a problem, at least as I understand what you are doing (it is a little unclear the way you have stated things).

I am assuming that you have some server 'master', which mounts /interfaces as a local (to 'master'), and it exports this to three unix servers ('unix_a', 'unix_b', and 'unix_c'), that is on master in /etc/exports you have something like:

/interfaces unix_a(rw),unix_b(rw),unix_c(rw)

and now you want to install samba on master and have a block like:

[outbound]
path = /interfaces/outbound

in master's /etc/samba/smb.conf

[G V R Shankar]

Please go thru the thread for complete information.