NFS vs. Samba - pros & cons?

I've set up my main box (Slackware 12.0, kernel 2.6.21.5) as a NFS
server so that my KnoppMyth box in the living room can access its
MP3 and video files. However, it might be nice if the Windows boxes
on the network could access this files too. I presume NFS is not an
option under Windows, but Samba is. Disregarding the Windows boxes
for a moment, are there any advantages to NFS over Samba under Linux -
even if the server only allows read access?

Would trying to run both NFS and Samba be impossible, or merely
inadvisable? (I suspect impossible; I was able to bring up nmbd,
but smbd refuses to start, claiming that someone has already bound
to port 139.)

Should I forget about NFS and switch over to Samba completely?

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On 03 Mar 08 09:32:00 -0800, Charlie Gibbs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>I've set up my main box (Slackware 12.0, kernel 2.6.21.5) as a NFS
>server so that my KnoppMyth box in the living room can access its
>MP3 and video files. However, it might be nice if the Windows boxes
>on the network could access this files too. I presume NFS is not an
>option under Windows, but Samba is. Disregarding the Windows boxes
>for a moment, are there any advantages to NFS over Samba under Linux -
>even if the server only allows read access?

>Would trying to run both NFS and Samba be impossible, or merely
>inadvisable? (I suspect impossible; I was able to bring up nmbd,
>but smbd refuses to start, claiming that someone has already bound
>to port 139.)

Neither. I run both all the time with absolutely no ill effects.
NFS doesn't go anywhere near ports 135-139 used by samba.

On 2008-03-03, Charlie Gibbs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> Would trying to run both NFS and Samba be impossible, or merely
> inadvisable? (I suspect impossible; I was able to bring up nmbd,
> but smbd refuses to start, claiming that someone has already bound
> to port 139.)

Something else is wrong. NFS and Samba should certainly be able to run
at the same time.

> Should I forget about NFS and switch over to Samba completely?

Not necessarily. If you are happy with your NFS configuration, I'd
troubleshoot your Samba configuration. When you start smbd, do you
already have an smbd running? That'd be my first guess. Make sure to
kill off all smbd processes before restarting.

If they're all gone, and you still get this message, do

lsof -i |grep 139

or

lsof -i |grep netbios

to see what's listening on that port.

--keith

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On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:32:00 -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> I've set up my main box (Slackware 12.0, kernel 2.6.21.5) as a NFS
> server so that my KnoppMyth box in the living room can access its MP3
> and video files. However, it might be nice if the Windows boxes on the
> network could access this files too. I presume NFS is not an option
> under Windows, but Samba is. Disregarding the Windows boxes for a
> moment, are there any advantages to NFS over Samba under Linux - even if
> the server only allows read access?

In the past, MS has offered free 'unix tools' for their products - I
believe NFS is included.

I believe NFS is more efficient - you could attempt some simple
benchmarks.


>
> Would trying to run both NFS and Samba be impossible, or merely
> inadvisable? (I suspect impossible; I was able to bring up nmbd, but
> smbd refuses to start, claiming that someone has already bound to port
> 139.)
>
> Should I forget about NFS and switch over to Samba completely?

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, kkeller-
(E-Mail Removed) (Keith Keller) writes:

> On 2008-03-03, Charlie Gibbs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Would trying to run both NFS and Samba be impossible, or merely
>> inadvisable? (I suspect impossible; I was able to bring up nmbd,
>> but smbd refuses to start, claiming that someone has already bound
>> to port 139.)
>
> Something else is wrong. NFS and Samba should certainly be able to
> run at the same time.

OK, I was afraid there would be some sort of contention issue.
After too much Windows exposure it's easy to forget that Linux
file systems are much smarter than that.

>> Should I forget about NFS and switch over to Samba completely?
>
> Not necessarily. If you are happy with your NFS configuration, I'd
> troubleshoot your Samba configuration. When you start smbd, do you
> already have an smbd running? That'd be my first guess. Make sure
> to kill off all smbd processes before restarting.

root@killer-penguin:/home/cjg/frompan$ ps -ef | grep mbd
root 20814 3279 0 Mar01 ? 00:00:00 nmbd
root 22715 3550 0 11:45 pts/2 00:00:00 grep mbd
root@killer-penguin:/home/cjg/frompan$ killall smbd
smbd: no process killed

> If they're all gone, and you still get this message, do
>
> lsof -i |grep 139

Nothing was displayed.

> or
>
> lsof -i |grep netbios
>
> to see what's listening on that port.

inetd 3279 root 8u IPv4 228847 TCP *:netbios-ssn (LISTEN)
inetd 3279 root 9u IPv4 228848 UDP *:netbios-ns
nmbd 20814 root 0u IPv4 228848 UDP *:netbios-ns
nmbd 20814 root 1u IPv4 228848 UDP *:netbios-ns
nmbd 20814 root 6u IPv4 506176 UDP *:netbois-dgm
nmbd 20814 root 7u IPv4 506178 UDP 192.168.0.42:netbios-ns
nmbd 20814 root 8u IPv4 506179 UDP 192.168.0.42:netbios-dgm

Duh! Yes, I had already enabled smbd and nmbd in /etc/inetd.conf.

Wandering off to a Windows box, I did a little snooping and presto!
up came my files, and I was able to play an MP3 across the network.
So the reason I couldn't bring up smbd was that inetd was already
waiting to do it for me. (It's smarter than I thought. :-)

Thanks for the help.

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