From: John E. Malmberg [wb8tyw@qsl.net]
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 12:08 AM
To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: SAMBA for VMS - Was Re: Suggest a better file serving solution
than NT?

Glenn C. Everhart <Everhart@GCE.company> wrote:

> Dan Sugalski wrote:
> Speeds running SAMBA will vary considerably. The oplocks in
> Samba 2.0.3 should make it faster by far than the old version.

Oplocks are not present in the SAMBA-VMS 2.0.3 release.  They require a
working fcntl() locking implementation.

I do have it apparently working in my port of SAMBA 2.0.6.  As I get closer
to placing something at my ftp site, I may need to prioritize what features
are implemented.

Among the features implemented:

OPLOCKS mentioned earlier.
Share locking.
Encrypted Passwords on the SMBD server.
Logging can be redirected to any valid file specification, including
SYS$OUTPUT.
Shares with 12 levels of directories on ODS-2 volumes.
File attributes can be associated with file extension in many cases.

Note: the UNIX samba 2.0.6 opens all files on a read-write share for
read/write, and this updates the modification dates. This is expected to be
fixed in a future release of the UNIX samba code.  My  VMS implementation
also does this.  RMS locking also seems to require the file be open for
write.


As of now I do not have implemented, in the order I am working on them:

Any feature that requires an external DCL command like Printing.
Conversion of the setuid() call to use persona services.
Plain-text passwords on the Server.
Some options are hardwired that should be done by logical names.
OpenVMS/VAX 7.1 build.
Packaging binaries for distribution.
Packaging of sources and build instructions for self builders.
Investigation of the NOTEPAD issue of containing text beyond logical EOF.

Samba 2.0.7 build
ODS-5 support.
Case Preserved filenames for ODS-2.
Fix for timeout problem in smbclient.
True READLINE support.
Conversion of share locking to directly use distributed lock manager.
Conversion of some of the features that call external DCL command procedures
to use system service calls.
ODS-2 shares with 15 levels of directories.
tdb library routines implemented using native RMS indexed files.


As this is a spare-time unfunded project, I can give no commitments on when
I will have something usable to post.

This port is mainly using a wrapper for the DEC C run time library that
either modifies existing routines or provides additional routines, such as a
fcntl() that uses RMS locking.
The run-time library is written to allow ports of other programs from
UNIX/LINUX to VMS and should work with versions of VMS from 5.5-2 on upward.

This run time library contains some code from the previous SAMBA-VMS code,
and some routines from other VMS freeware.  I have been keeping track of who
to credit.

There are only a few small modifications to the base UNIX SAMBA version so
it should be easier to keep current.  The current UNIX SAMBA release is
2.0.7.

If there are features that can be lived without or if there is some interest
in a partial release for people that want to do some testing, please let me
know.  And I will try to accommodate.

-John
wb8tyw@qsl.network