NFS or SAMBA - which would you choose ?

[Rita C Workman]

..I have vacillated on this decision, but now it's crunch time...

I have a SAMBA server set up and it works -great! No problems, no big drain on system.

But now I have to start setting up to test (anybody hear of this..) Centera. It will require that I do either NFS or SAMBA connection between the Centera gateway and the HPUX server. Actually the HPUX server becomes the 'client' to the Centera gateway.

I see alot of complaints about NFS..performance issues, etc. So if you had your choice, which would you recommend....SAMBA or NFS ?

[...and for those who say 'you can't do SAMBA on HPUX as a client'....actually you can according to the book...] So both options are open.

Open for any views on this....looks like I'm gonna be 'decidin..' up to the point I open my mouth and say.."here's what we do.."

Thanks,
Rita

[Alzhy]

My preferences:

UNIX Server/UNIX Client: NFS
Windows Server (LanMAN/SMB/Native Windows FIleServing)/Unix Client: SAMBA (CIFS client)
WIndows Server (NFS)/Unix Client (NFS)

Anyone tried NFS v4 yet?

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

I'd try and go pure Samba CIFS/9000 if I could. NFS transmits its data unencrypted and has all of the problems you mentioned in your initial post.

I've played around with this a bit and seems to be a little bit if a tie together though.

cifsmount is used on HP-UX to connect to the Windows server

I have an hp9000 server that connects into a Windows box. Trust me there is no nfs server on it at all.

Yet when the connection times out, the bdf program complains about the lost NFS connection.

Few things to comprehend:
1) There is no timeout on the NT 4.0 server
2) Why is there an NFS warning when access is lost.

Still, it would seem there are less pitfalls with CIFS than NFS.

SEP

[Steve Lewis]

Lets start off the arguments...

If you can get Samba going with HP-UX as a client, then I say go with it.

If you have MS clients as well as HP-UX, then definitely go with Samba, since the MS services for UNIX version of NFS is slow.

I have a customer who tested them both on a high-volume image-archive system and had to go with Samba because NFS was too slow, they got under-runs.

On the other hand, Samba is a simple beast, whereas NFS is tuneable (after some testing we use these options to make NFS go quicker over our gigabit lan: timeo=14,rsize=16384,wsize=16384,acregmin=60,acregmax=600,acdirmin=60,acdirmax=600,proto=udp,NFSv3 ). The other advantage of NFS is that you may be more used to battling with it.

I just read about Centera. It sounds like a version of CAFS (which I used on ICL-VME back in 1989).

[Dave Olker]

Hi Rita,

I'll admit up front that I have a very biased opinion, having written several white papers and one book about NFS, but if the choices are between the HP-UX being a pure NFS client and being a CIFS client my choice would be the pure NFS client.

My reasons are that when you use the HP CIFS Client product you're actually using both CIFS and NFS protocols. The CIFS product leverages much of the NFS RPC code to send RPC requests to the CIFS/Samba server - or in this case the Centera gateway - so you have to be concerned about configuring/tuning both NFS and CIFS properly to get it to work well.

In the pure NFS client case, you only need worry about configuring the NFS client for behavior/performance, and there is a lot of information available on how to tune HP-UX systems as NFS clients and servers (I know because I've written a lot of it).

Now, if the question were: "Should you use CIFS/Samba or NFS on an HP-UX server?" then my answer would depend on what type of systems the clients were. If they were MS/Windows clients, I'd use CIFS/Samba (as opposed to loading a PC-NFS or SFU product on the MS Windows clients). If they are Unix/Linux clients, I'd use NFS.

Regards,

Dave

[Dave Olker]

Steven,

Regarding your question:
2) Why is there an NFS warning when access is lost.

The reason is that the HP CIFS Client product sits on top of the NFS client and uses much of the NFS client's procedures to send CIFS RPC calls to the server. Given the error message displayed when access is lost, it's clear that the client's kernel believes the mounted filesystem is an NFS filesystem.

The CIFS lab has made some noise in the past about developing a "next generation" client that would no longer leverage the NFS client code, but I have not heard anything definite from them as far as dates or release schedules.

Regards,

Dave

[harry d brown jr]

I would choose SAMBA for the following reasons:

...(1) PC clients can use the share. With NFS you need software on the PC's to do NFS mounts
...(2) Samba is stateful, whereas NFS is dumb (has no clue when the server goes away until you want something)
...(3) Samba offers a lot more security
...(4) system doesn't freak if the samba server goes away

And yes, I have heard of EMC's Centera's, as I have three, two in production and one in a lab. We don't use the gateway product as we have our own in-house app's that talk directly to the Centera's.

live free or die
harry

[Alzhy]

Dave,

Did you work with Sharity before? ;-)

At some point in the past, HP would just wait on whatever updates they have from Sharity (ww.sharity.com) -- CIFS' authors?. I am not sure these days if that is still the case.

Our site beta tested some of the releases which fixed numerous problems with CIFS Client asome 2 years ago. Back then, CIFS Clients would hang under heavy load or across WAN connections plus some other odd problems. Since 2003 though (the .8. release?), it's been rock solid.

I would still however go with my original preferences which somewhat goes alongdie Dave's and that is:

If UNIX is a client to a pirely Windows File server -- then CIFS Client (NOT SAMBA!) should be the UNIX client software. If UNIX is a client to another FileServer that is a multi-protocol server (ie. NAS boxen - networked storage) -- find out if that NAS solution is Windows or UNIX/Linux powered. If it is Windows powered -- then HP-UX would be better off with using CIFS Client. If UNIX/LInus .. I would go with pure NFS..

Again CIFS Client (The HP-UX piece that allows Hp-UX machines to be a client to SMB/LanMAN/CIFS/Windows servers) is NOT SAMBA...

[John Poff]

Hi Rita!

We've run Samba in production here for years now, and we've been running NFS for some time also. I've never had to reboot a server due to a Samba issue, which I can't say about NFS. They both work, but I've had almost no headaches with Samba.

JP

[Alzhy]

Again, if HP-UX server will be the client to the Centera gateway boxen (anyone able to confirm yet if this boxen is Windows or UNIX/Linux Powered? or Proprietary OS?), then there is no involvement at all of SAMBA as HP-UX can either connect via CIFS Client (which is NOT SAMBA!) or NFS.

I bekeive CIFS/9000 Client is independent of CIFS/9000 Server (which is the SAMBA piece).

[Rita C Workman]

Wow...Thanks for the feedback !

The Centera Gateway is Windows based. The client is the HPUX server.

Like I said..I have HPUX boxes set up as SAMBA servers, and they work great - never had so much as a 'burp'. But this would be the HPUX as a SAMBA or CIFS9000 'client'.

Mr. Olker, I have printed what I found of your NFS documentation and read it. My biggest concern was the tuning and drain on resources that NFS takes, mainly client for this. And how stable would it be.
One reason I had thought of going with NFS, was because we run MC/SG (Continental Cluster) and I thought I could use HA_NFS right in the pkg cntl script for the mounts. Thus making failover and remounts easier.

So, Thank You All for your comments... I believe I've made up my mind which way I'm going to go.

Kindest Regards,
Rita

[Rita C Workman]

===========================================
I tried to give everyone a total of 10 points, as all answers were correct....

=============================================

PLEASE CONSIDER THIS POST CLOSED




Thanks,
Rita

...........THIS POST CLOSED............

[Alzhy]

Rita,

Just as an addendum with the hope of instilling into the minds of Admins on this very distinguished forum:

1:\ CIFS/9000 Client - is NOT SAMBA....

2:\ SAMBA.. although it has client capabilities to connect to another SAMBA or CIFS or WIndows Server.. cannot be considered a viable "client" for UNIX file connections to CIFS servers.

3:\ CIFS Client is totally independent from CIFS Server (aka SAMBA)

4:\ CIFS/9000 Client is actually software that came from Sharity (www.sharity.com) .. don't know if HP still gets updates from them or ended the relationship and does the updates themeselves.


And in your current situation, since your Centera is Windows Powered (and probably using Microsoft Services for Unix 3.0) ... you can go either way -- CIFS CLient or NFS.. noting that you will have to tune NFS if you go that route. Use the very latest CIFS/9000 Client software on your 11.0/11i systems.

[Alzhy]

Correction on the CIFS Website:

The Sharity Product Website upon which CIFS is (was?) based is:

http://www.obdev.at/products/sharity/

[Rita C Workman]

For me it was a simple matter of looking under /opt to see that it has cifsclient and not smbclient.

I suppose using the term SAMBA so loosely can lead to some 'confusion'. Thanks for keeping us on the straight and narrow, Nelson.

Rgrds,
Rita

[Dave Olker]

Hi Rita,

From your recent post:
_________________________________

Like I said..I have HPUX boxes set up as SAMBA servers, and they work great - never had so much as a 'burp'. But this would be the HPUX as a SAMBA or CIFS9000 'client'.
_________________________________


I'm glad you've never had a problem running this system as a Samba server, but that's not what you're planning on doing with it now. Again, if the question were "how should I configure my system as a file server" this would be a totally different discussion.

You're looking to use this system as a CIFS client or NFS client and you're biggest concern is, in your words:

_________________________________

Mr. Olker, I have printed what I found of your NFS documentation and read it. My biggest concern was the tuning and drain on resources that NFS takes, mainly client for this. And how stable would it be.
_________________________________


Since our existing CIFS Client product runs on top of the NFS client, it is therefore dependent upon the system being configured properly as an NFS client before you even start worrying about CIFS client configuration. Most people don't realize this, but I'm trying to make it clear here.

Bottom line:

If you use this system as an NFS client, you need to make sure it is configured to behave/perform well as an NFS client.

If you use this system as a CIFS client, you first need to make sure it is configured to behave/perform well as an NFS client and THEN make sure it is configured properly to work as a CIFS client.


I figured it would be easier to configure and troubleshoot any problems if you only had to worry about one subsystem (NFS) as opposed to two (NFS & CIFS).

Regardless of which way you go, I'll be very interested in knowing which one you choose and what your experience implementing this solution turns out to be.

Regards,

Dave

P.S. Hope you found my NFS documentation helpful.

[Rita C Workman]

Hi Dave,

I found your documentation very helpful. Although, for myself, it takes awhile before enough of it sinks in. Currently, I have no NFS mounts running here, just HPUX as a SAMBA server (to Windows PC mounts). This will be the reverse Windows server to HPUX client.


...Oh your at HPWorld according to the sessions, hmmm...Maybe I'll see you There.

Rgrds,
Rita