Re: Samba vs NFS

From: Randy Williams (randyw_at_techsource.com)
Date: 02/22/05

  • Next message: Ryan Nowakowski: "Re: Samba vs NFS" 
    Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:13:40 -0500
To: Jennifer Fountain <jfountain@rbinc.com>

    Greetings Jennifer,

    NFS is by its design (v3 anyway) insecure and requires it to be packaged
    within an acceptable encryption technology (IPSec/SSH) in order for it
    to be secure. However, be advised that the Linux NFS client is still
    immature (2.4 kernels anyway) and there are various NFS implementations
    that won't work well with it. For instance, I run a shop that has to
    mount NFS from every UNIX vendor in recent memory. That makes for QUITE
    a headache to be sure.

    That being said, if you do your homework properly (i.e. find the right
    combination of mount options) Secure NFS will work well for you for your
    *nix clients.

    Windows is entirely another matter. Windows cannot, natively, support
    NFS, it will require either Windows Services for Unix (Version 3 is out
    and is fairly capable) or a Samba service. Since Samba 3.0 came out,
    Samba has been able to imitate a Full Windows 2000 Active Directory
    domain and is quite powerful. However, extensive testing will be
    required to make sure that your windows systems operate successfully.
    Also, you'll need to make sure your are running a BIND 9.0 compatible
    DNS server, as Windows 2000 was only field tested with BIND 4.x.

    However, these two services are not the same thing, as NFS serves the
    *nix crowd, while Samba was developed to allow Windows clients to
    connect to a *nix network. Also be advised that (as far as I know),
    *nix clients can only temporarily mount a Samba windows share (it will
    no survive a reboot).

    As always, if I'm off base here, please feel free to correct me.

    RandyW

    Jennifer Fountain wrote:

    >Hi all:
    >My company is looking at samba or NFS to allow our clients to access
    >shares from their Windows workstations and their linux ssh sessions.
    >>From a security standpoint, which option is "more" secure? Which option
    >is more vulnerable than the other? Etc, etc ,etc. I appeciate any
    >security information about NFS or samba that you may have.
    >
    >
    >Kind Regards,
    >
    >Jennifer Fountain
    >Systems Administrator
    >R&B Distribution
    >3400 E Walnut Street
    >Colmar, PA 18915
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >

  • Next message: Ryan Nowakowski: "Re: Samba vs NFS"

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