Exploring Samba's new registry-based configuration

Registry Configuration in the Cluster

A cluster setup faces the inherent chicken and egg problem: The registry is stored in the registry.tdb database, and CTDB has to distribute it across the cluster. To enable distribution of the registry, the administrator initially needs to configure Samba with the clustering = yes option set before registry globals are read. So unfortunately, the registry-only configuration with config backend = registry is not an option here. Instead, the admin should copy the minimal smb.conf file in Listing 2 as a default configuration to all cluster nodes once. Afterwards, the whole Samba cluster can be configured centrally through the registry.

Accessing Registry Configuration Data

Samba provides several approaches for editing the registry. Before you can modify the Samba registry, you need to enable remote access for your designated management account using the following command:

net rpc rights grant user SeDiskOperatorPrivilege

regedit.exe

Because the registry is available remotely over the WINREG RPC interface when the Samba daemon smbd is running, the most obvious method of access is through the Windows registry editor regedit.exe (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Editing the Samba 3.2 configuration with the registry editor, regedit.exe.

The advantage of the registry editor is that it gives the Windows admin the opportunity to configure a samba server with familiar tools. But in the long run, this method will probably be too awkward, even for hard-core Windows addicts.

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