B.0 Comparing Novell CIFS and Novell Samba

This section compares features and capabilities of Novell CIFS and Novell Samba on Open Enterprise Server 11 SP3 servers.

Table B-1 Novell CIFS and Novell Samba Comparison

Parameter

Novell CIFS

Novell Samba

Authentication

Password policy is required to allow CIFS users to authenticate to eDirectory.

A Samba-compatible Password Policy is required for compatibility with Windows workgroup authentication.

Client-side Caching

Yes. Configurable at server-level.

Configurable at share-level.

DST

Yes

No

File system support

NSS is the only file system supported for this release.

It is recommended (but not required) that you create Samba shares on NSS data volumes. NSS is fully integrated with eDirectory for easy management, and using an NSS volume allows you to take advantage of the rich data security model in NSS. You can use either iManager or the NSSMU utility to create an NSS volume on an OES11 SP3 server. For instructions on how to setup an NSS volume, see the OES 11 SP3: File Systems Management Guide.

LUM and Samba enablement

LUM enablement is not required.

Users must be enabled for LUM and Samba and assigned to a Samba group.

NetBIOS support

Yes. SMB over NetBIOS (139).

SMB over Netbios (139) and SMB over TCP/IP (445).

Novell Trustee Rights

Yes

No

Scalability

Higher when compared with Samba.

Lower when compared with CIFS.

Subtree Search

Yes

No