Blog

SAMBA+ 4.13.2, 4.12.10 and 4.11.16 packages have just been released by SerNet. Packages for various SUSE and Red Hat platforms as well as for Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu and AIX are available now.

These packages address a major issue which affects the GlusterFS VFS module:

• Bug 14486: vfs_glusterfs: Avoid data corruption with the write-behind translator.

Further issues are listed in the Samba release history:

• https://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-4.13.2.html
• https://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-4.12.10.html
• https://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-4.11.16.html

Samba Bug 14537 (ctdb-common: Avoid aliasing errors during code optimization) does not affect the SAMBA+ packages.

SAMBA+ packages are available as software subscription. They can be purchased at the SAMBA+ shop, detailed information and prices are listed at https://shop.samba.plus. The subscriptions are managed at our platform OPOSSO (https://oposso.samba.plus). Users can activate their subscriptions here and manage access credentials. The new SAMBA+ packages are included in existing subscriptions.

In this "Report from the field" Günther Deschner (Red Hat / Samba Team) and Anoop C S (Red Hat) talk about "Samba clustering with GlusterFS". Their presentation was part of this year's sambaXP 2020.

Abstract

Samba supports building a clustered SMB storage solution using the Gluster filesystem for several years now. While Samba and it’s cluster component CTDB are well established components for SMB clustering, the Gluster filesystem itself needed to adapt in various areas to provide all necessary features.

The talk covers the lessons learned during the process of maturing the Samba and GlusterFS setup and explore the architecture of Samba and GlusterFS in general. Based on support experiences we  point out the importance of sometimes overseen prerequisites in the area of networking and DNS. Driven by customer demands several important performance improvements have been made in the past months. Users of the glusterfs fuse filesystem now can use a new Samba VFS module that provides enhanced guarantees for accessing files within the cluster. It also implements a mechanism to circumvent expensive case folding pathname operations. The older Samba VFS module which consumes Gluster’s gfapi library now uses Samba’s threadpool implementation based on pthreads which lead to significant performance improvements. The presentation concludes with an outlook for the ongoing work related to SMB3 features such as multichannel and transparent failover.

(Slides as PDF)

About the "sambaXP 2020 Retrospective"

In this series we will present recordings of the sambaXP 2020 in the coming weeks. The 19th edition of the international conference on the open source software Samba took place from 26 - 28 May 2020 for the first time exclusively in digital form. Due to the changed event format and the use of an online conference platform, organizer SerNet is able to offer all talks as videos for viewing (link).

SAMBA+ 4.12.8 and 4.11.14 have just been released. Packages for various SUSE and Red Hat platforms as well as for Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu are available now.

These packages address a lot of issues, which are listed in the release notes for Samba 4.12.8 and Samba 4.11.14.

SAMBA+ packages and all later versions are available as software subscription. They can be purchased at the SAMBA+ shop, detailed information and prices are listed at https://shop.samba.plus. The subscriptions are managed at our platform OPOSSO (https://oposso.samba.plus). Users can activate their subscriptions here and manage access credentials. The new SAMBA+ packages are included in existing subscriptions.

"The way to modern Kerberos features" is the title of the sambaXP 2020 talk by Stefan Metzmacher. Metzmacher is part of Sernet's Team Samba and also a member of the international Samba Team.

Abstract

• Using S4U2Self in winbindd
• The limitations of existing kerberos libraries
• The challenges of adding new features to kerberos libraries
• Kerberos testing with plain python

(Slides as PDF)

About the "sambaXP 2020 Retrospective"

In this series we will present recordings of the sambaXP 2020 in the coming weeks. The 19th edition of the international conference on the open source software Samba took place from 26 - 28 May 2020 for the first time exclusively in digital form. Due to the changed event format and the use of an online conference platform, organizer SerNet is able to offer all talks as videos for viewing (link).

Michael Adam is in search for "A stage for Samba in the era of the container platform!?" in his sambaXP 2020 talk. Adam is a Adam is a longtime Samba team member and works as Senior Manager Software Engineering at Red Hat (LinkedIn).

Abstract

In recent times, container application platforms, in particular kubernetes, have become extremely popular, have for instance overtaken the virtual machine centric cloud operating system OpenStack in popularity. In contrast to virtual machine environments which run a variety of operating systems and therefore also have natural use cases for Samba, container platforms are usually running one operating system (kernel) only, and thus don’t offer a very obvious space for Samba, whose main purpose is to act as an agent between different operating systems. Is there still a stage for Samba in container land?

This presentation starts with an introduction to the storage concepts of kubernetes and the container storage interface standard CSI, which generalizes these to other container platforms. It will explain the roles of file, block, and object storage in kubernetes and then shows how a distributed software defined storage system like ceph or gluster is brought into kubernetes, running alongside the consuming applications and managed by so called “operators”, providing storage self service for the applications.

From here on, the presentation explores some very interesting and possibly surprising opportunities for Samba in this environment. Details are omitted in this abstract in order to keep up the suspense. (Slides as PDF)

About the "sambaXP 2020 Retrospective"

In this series we will present recordings of the sambaXP 2020 in the coming weeks. The 19th edition of the international conference on the open source software Samba took place from 26 - 28 May 2020 for the first time exclusively in digital form. Due to the changed event format and the use of an online conference platform, organizer SerNet is able to offer all talks as videos for viewing (link).