Changing from a Samba classic domain to Samba 4

Bottlenecks

The two biggest performance issues when comparing Samba 4 and a Samba classic domain are network drives and the domain controller. Samba 4 can boost performance of network drives because it supports SMB 3, which Microsoft launched with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

As a domain controller, Samba 4 tends to be worse in terms of data throughput. Practical experience shows that the built-in LDAP server does not compare well with OpenLDAP. But a slower LDAP server only really causes problems when different services use the LDAP connection – and not only to authenticate. This issue can cause bottlenecks if admins also operate DHCP servers, groupware, and mailing lists derived from LDAP.

Samba 4 is also much more memory-hungry than its predecessor. This is especially noticeable when many users are loading the network drives. Admins need to provide enough RAM to maintain a consistent level of performance.

NetBIOS and Browsing

Samba 4 still does not support NetBIOS browsing on the Samba 4 domain controller. Windows clients do not see the domain controller in their network environment. In other words, if Samba 4 is defined as the NetBIOS master, no network devices appear in the network neighborhood.

Many versions of Microsoft Exchange require an LDAP feature that is still lacking in the Samba 4 LDAP, so at this time, it is only possible to add a Microsoft Exchange 2010 system on a Microsoft Server 2008 R2 to the Samba 4 domain.

As is often the case, the Samba 4 environment has several minor stumbling blocks that only stop the show in specific cases. See the Samba bug tracker [9] for details.

Choices

The first important thing is to choose a suitable version of Samba. Although it has been possible to use the Active Directory domain controller in Samba 4 since version 4.0, only version 4.3 promises comparatively little trouble. If you are shopping for a distribution, you should consider Debian Jessie, which incorporates a reasonably current version of Samba, version 4.2.10. But if you also need star and hub replication for multi-site scenarios via KCC, you will need version 4.3. Older versions only allow mesh replication.

Using the Debian Sid development edition will put you closer to the Samba pulse, but a development version is out of the question for many companies. Most other distributions in the enterprise come with rather obsolete packages, including many bugs that more recent versions of Samba 4 fix. If the distribution you use does not come with a current Samba 4 version, admins still have the opportunity to buy packages from Sernet or build from the sources.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Samba 4

    Since the release of the final version, Samba 4 has become increasingly significant in IT practice; now it has found its way into Jessie, the next Debian release. We take a look at the new features.

  • Samba 4.0 Released

    The Samba team announces Samba 4.0 – the latest version of the free software file, print, and authentication server suite designed for compatibility with Windows networks.

  • Next Alpha Version of Samba 4

    The developers of the Samba 4 version have released the second alpha version three months after the initial alpha.

  • Samba 4

    A technical preview version of Samba 4 became available at the end of January. We took a look at what’s coming in the next version of the Samba file and print service suite.

  • Samba 3.2 With IPv6, Clustering and GPLv3

    The free Samba project has just released version 3.2 of the file and printer server for Microsoft Windows clients. The team will be moving to the GPL v3 license as of this version.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News