X86VMS SAMBA V4.10-16D

[Chris Townley]

I tried installing this on 9.2-2 - all prerequisites followed, but I am
damned if I can get it to work. I have set it up as a Standalone Server
with just a couple of basic shares, which is all I want. I have no
problems with Samba on a variety of linuxes (?)

The VSI release notes say to refer to the Samba site, and also to the
VSI Samba release notes! Not helpful.

Does anybody have any VMS based guides/notes - all the commands are
hidden, and obviously different when you find them. No help files...

What sort of paths do we use in the smb.conf file? VMS, or pseudo unix ones.

TIA

[Arne Vajhøj]

Post by Chris Townley
I tried installing this on 9.2-2 - all prerequisites followed, but I am
damned if I can get it to work. I have set it up as a Standalone Server
with just a couple of basic shares, which is all I want. I have no
problems with Samba on a variety of linuxes (?)
The VSI release notes say to refer to the Samba site, and also to the
VSI Samba release notes! Not helpful.
Does anybody have any VMS based guides/notes - all the commands are
hidden, and obviously different when you find them. No help files...
What sort of paths do we use in the smb.conf file? VMS, or pseudo unix ones.

You can't do everything using @SAMBA$CONFIG?

Docs are indeed scarce. Google found:

https://community.hpe.com/hpeb/attachments/hpeb/itrc-293/56389/1/303284.pdf

which is a very old version, but may still have something.

And it does use *nix syntax for path (page 3-14).

Arne

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Arne Vajhøj
Docs are indeed scarce.

Tip: to keep things manageable, do not start with the default smb.conf.
That’s just an example. Create your own smb.conf from scratch (using the
default as reference), and make sure every line you put in has a purpose
you understand. Do not blindly copy/paste bunches of stuff “just in case”.
The man page gives a lot of detail about each option; refer to it
frequently.

Basic diagnostic tools like nmblookup, smbtree and smbstatus are also
useful for troubleshooting. As is smbclient for checking that you can
actually connect to your server.

See also the Samba Wiki <https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Main_Page>.

[Chris Townley]

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by Chris Townley
I tried installing this on 9.2-2 - all prerequisites followed, but I
am damned if I can get it to work. I have set it up as a Standalone
Server with just a couple of basic shares, which is all I want. I have
no problems with Samba on a variety of linuxes (?)
The VSI release notes say to refer to the Samba site, and also to the
VSI Samba release notes! Not helpful.
Does anybody have any VMS based guides/notes - all the commands are
hidden, and obviously different when you find them. No help files...
What sort of paths do we use in the smb.conf file? VMS, or pseudo unix ones.

https://community.hpe.com/hpeb/attachments/hpeb/itrc-293/56389/1/303284.pdf
which is a very old version, but may still have something.
And it does use *nix syntax for path (page 3-14).
Arne

Thanks, but I already have CIFS v1.1 docs, but that barely helps

This version seems to sit on LDAP, which I installed as a pre-requisite,
but again no docs on that. Digging deeper that seems to want to use SLAP
again no docs and limited help. That failed with a ageing quota error,
so I managed to set a smaller max DB size. Still getting nothing except
errors.

I don't really need it, so I give up. Will probably uninstall

VSI are doing themselves no favours putting out changed open source
utilities without any documentation. At least HP used to have their own
docs.

[Arne Vajhøj]

Post by Chris Townley

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by Chris Townley
I tried installing this on 9.2-2 - all prerequisites followed, but I
am damned if I can get it to work. I have set it up as a Standalone
Server with just a couple of basic shares, which is all I want. I
have no problems with Samba on a variety of linuxes (?)
The VSI release notes say to refer to the Samba site, and also to the
VSI Samba release notes! Not helpful.
Does anybody have any VMS based guides/notes - all the commands are
hidden, and obviously different when you find them. No help files...
What sort of paths do we use in the smb.conf file? VMS, or pseudo unix ones.

https://community.hpe.com/hpeb/attachments/hpeb/itrc-293/56389/1/303284.pdf
which is a very old version, but may still have something.
And it does use *nix syntax for path (page 3-14).

Thanks, but I already have CIFS v1.1 docs, but that barely helps
This version seems to sit on LDAP, which I installed as a pre-requisite,
but again no docs on that. Digging deeper that seems to want to use SLAP
again no docs and limited help. That failed with a ageing quota error,
so I managed to set a smaller max DB size. Still getting nothing except
errors.

It is not possible to ask Samba to use local VMS accounts instead of AD
(LDAP)?

LDAP docs was asked for 2 years ago:
https://forum.vmssoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=8497
but ...

Post by Chris Townley
I don't really need it, so I give up. Will probably uninstall
VSI are doing themselves no favours putting out changed open source
utilities without any documentation. At least HP used to have their own
docs.

Someone could volunteer to add to:
https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/Samba_Installation

:-)

I liked PathWorks back in the days.

I have never liked Samba.

Today I just use COPY/FTP for moving files
between Windows and VMS.

Arne

[Chris Townley]

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by Chris Townley

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by Chris Townley
I tried installing this on 9.2-2 - all prerequisites followed, but I
am damned if I can get it to work. I have set it up as a Standalone
Server with just a couple of basic shares, which is all I want. I
have no problems with Samba on a variety of linuxes (?)
The VSI release notes say to refer to the Samba site, and also to
the VSI Samba release notes! Not helpful.
Does anybody have any VMS based guides/notes - all the commands are
hidden, and obviously different when you find them. No help files...
What sort of paths do we use in the smb.conf file? VMS, or pseudo unix ones.

https://community.hpe.com/hpeb/attachments/hpeb/itrc-293/56389/1/303284.pdf
which is a very old version, but may still have something.
And it does use *nix syntax for path (page 3-14).

Thanks, but I already have CIFS v1.1 docs, but that barely helps
This version seems to sit on LDAP, which I installed as a
pre-requisite, but again no docs on that. Digging deeper that seems to
want to use SLAP again no docs and limited help. That failed with a
ageing quota error, so I managed to set a smaller max DB size. Still
getting nothing except errors.

It is not possible to ask Samba to use local VMS accounts instead of AD
(LDAP)?
    https://forum.vmssoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=8497
but ...

Post by Chris Townley
I don't really need it, so I give up. Will probably uninstall
VSI are doing themselves no favours putting out changed open source
utilities without any documentation. At least HP used to have their
own docs.

    https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/Samba_Installation
:-)
I liked PathWorks back in the days.
I have never liked Samba.
Today I just use COPY/FTP for moving files
between Windows and VMS.
Arne

I just sort of got used to Samba. I have it running on a few Raspberry
Pis, as well as my Ubuntu host for VMS under KVM. That works well, but I
will give it a rest for now, then maybe have another rattle at it when I
have a bit more energy

I generally use FTP, or copy to a Pi, then scp it across. Also just
installed WinSCP which is a pretty good tool

[Craig A. Berry]

Post by Chris Townley
I generally use FTP, or copy to a Pi, then scp it across. Also just
installed WinSCP which is a pretty good tool

PuTTY's pscp works just fine with the old SSH product on VMS. I've used
it a lot from both Windows and macOS. If you get OpenSSH on the VMS
boxes it doesn't seem to be necessary anymore -- you can just use an
ordinary scp client.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Arne Vajhøj
I have never liked Samba.

It’s built on a Microsoft “standard”, so what do you expect? Don’t blame
the Samba developers: they did an absolutely amazing job of understanding,
and documenting, the ins and outs of that hodgepodge of bodges,
accumulated over decades of short-sighted technical decisions, that is
Microsoft SMB.

And we use it because it is the closest thing we have to a cross-platform
file-server architecture.

[chrisq]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Arne Vajhøj
I have never liked Samba.

It’s built on a Microsoft “standard”, so what do you expect? Don’t blame
the Samba developers: they did an absolutely amazing job of understanding,
and documenting, the ins and outs of that hodgepodge of bodges,
accumulated over decades of short-sighted technical decisions, that is
Microsoft SMB.
And we use it because it is the closest thing we have to a cross-platform
file-server architecture.

Never used Samba here, nfs is the standard, and even windows server
has an nfs client and server as an included option. It just works.

Assume VMS has nfs client capability ?...

Chris

[Chris Townley]

Post by chrisq
Never used Samba here, nfs is the standard, and even windows server
has an nfs client and server as an included option. It just works.
Assume VMS has nfs client capability ?...
Chris

VMS does have NFS - server and client. Used it for years, but never
found a Windows client (or server) apart from the old Sun version, that
was expensive, and very insecure.

[chrisq]

Post by Chris Townley

Post by chrisq
Never used Samba here, nfs is the standard, and even windows server
has an nfs client and server as an included option. It just works.
Assume VMS has nfs client capability ?...
Chris

VMS does have NFS - server and client. Used it for years, but never
found a Windows client (or server) apart from the old Sun version, that
was expensive, and very insecure.

I used something called nfsaxe for windows, for a decade or more. Very
cost effective per machine, but they are no longer in business. Some
windows professional, desktop had the capability, iirc, but the server
versions all have it. Enabled as a service from setup. Run server
versions here, even for desktop, as it's more secure and has far more
capable system management tools available.

I think PC/NFS was the last Sun version used here, but very old now and
quite primitive, fwir. Worked well with msdos though.

NFS used to run across udp, but v4 has the option of tcp/ip, a more
reliable and secure transport...

Chris

[Hans Bachner]

Post by chrisq

Post by Arne Vajhøj
I have never liked Samba.

[...]

Never used Samba here, nfs is the standard, and even windows server
has an nfs client and server as an included option. It just works.
Assume VMS has nfs client capability ?...

Sure it has - NFS client and server.

Hans.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

... nfs is the standard ...

NFS requires too much trust between machines.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... nfs is the standard ...

NFS requires too much trust between machines.

Sometimes it does, but it's sure as hell a lot faster than SMB, even if
samba+fuse isn't involved.
--scott

[Matthew R. Wilson]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... nfs is the standard ...

NFS requires too much trust between machines.

NFS with Kerberos solves that, but I suspect that may cut down the
number of NFS clients available on various platforms since I'm guessing
they don't all support Kerberos.

-Matthew

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... nfs is the standard ...

NFS requires too much trust between machines.

NFS with Kerberos solves that ...

But that still works with mounting an entire volume, and trusting to the
mounting client to enforce filesystem protections, doesn’t it? It isn’t
controlled on a per-user basis, like SMB is.

[Matthew R. Wilson]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... nfs is the standard ...

NFS requires too much trust between machines.

NFS with Kerberos solves that ...

But that still works with mounting an entire volume, and trusting to the
mounting client to enforce filesystem protections, doesn’t it? It isn’t
controlled on a per-user basis, like SMB is.

I don't think so; last I used it (it's been a while) between Linux and
MacOS X clients against a Solaris NFS server, it seemed like the server
was enforcing access permissions based on the user in the kerberos
ticket. (And a user who just logged in couldn't access any files on the
mounted NFS share even though other users could; the user had to run the
command to log in to the kerberos server and get their ticket, and after
a couple hours NFS would suddenly stop working for them if they didn't
refresh their individual ticket. Of course in a real deployment getting
the kerberos ticket when the user logs in would be automated and part
of, say, the PAM process and such. But the point is, I'm pretty sure it
was the NFS server on Solaris enforcing permissions based on the
kerberos ticket the user making the request held.)

-Matthew

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

... it seemed like the server was enforcing access permissions based on
the user in the kerberos ticket.

Seems you are right <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NFS/Kerberos>.