I would love to hear from anyone who has been able to get SAMBA running on Mac OS X Server. I want to find out whether it's easier, faster, more reliable, or easier to support than ASIP 6.x with Windows file sharing. Since Apple does not ship MOSXS with SAMBA, they have a "which should you choose" section on their G3 server pages that suggest you get ASIP if you need to server files to Windows clients. I have a hard time convincing myself to invest in "old" technology, even though I have had relative success with ASIP (reboot once every 2 months, reliable Windows file serving on local and remote subnets, incredibly simple backups with Retrospect, etc.). I'd like to see some realistic performance comparisons, too.

While I do not have experience with ASIP, I do have expierence with Samba. It can be a bit tricky to setup (since all the configuration is via a text file), but the performance and compatibility is outstanding.

It seems as though employing ASIP would introduce massive overhead since MOSXS has to load a whole 'nother OS just to serve files. This is a Bad Thing.

I haven't yet tried compiling Samba for MOSXS, but I think it would be a worthwhile time investment to get it to work.

Hint to Apple: include Samba pre-built in the next rev.

- Scott

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Scott Stevenson
Contributing Editor,
MacN

I have installed Samba, and THAT went without a hitch. Configuration is a bear, though. There is a web browser interface to the samba app, so you don't have to mess with the config text file manually, but getting the settings JUST RIGHT is not ANYWHERE as straight-forward as in ASIP. Unless you have set up a SAMBA server before, or unless you have someone nearby that has, you might want to stick with ASIP.

In a semi-unrelated note, I have SAMBA working OK now, but the Appleshare file server doesn't see any drives to share. doh.

is there a binary floating around or did you compile and build it yourself?

I wish Apple would have included it also and I wish it wasnt such a bitch to configure..