From: "Adam Flinton" 


"Peter Sawatzki"  wrote in message
news:MPG.18f0bd3aaaa90f469896e7{at}news.barkto.com...
> I consider replacing an aging NT4 server by a either W2K server or a
> Linux server with Samba. There will be about 70 users and approximatly
> 20 GB of file data served. Is this something Linux/Samba can handle ?

Yes it can. Watercooler company we did a DB2 app for has been doing this
for approx 100-140 people since 1999/2000 on a dell server thing ( i think
it was Mandrake 7.x) The Server is/was a dual 500 PII with 256 mb of RAM
with a 100 mbit network (2 netcards per machine).. The actual numbers are
now higher but while I was involved those were the numbers (it was an
initial test deployment).

The are/were 2 of these dell boxes with both having db2 set up on them
& both having the capability to do f&p. They sync'ed both DB &
files everynight such that if one died the other could do both jobs.
Running the "company critical" db2 app (DB2 6.1 on Mandrake)
& f&p at the same time on the same box posed no problems.

What is more while we could direct f&p to one netcard on a given box
& db2 stuff to the other, just one netcard could handle the load.

So while optimum = 2 identical machines & thus 4 netcards / ip
addresses having just one machine with 1 netcard & thus 1 IP addr also
worked within requirements.

> Any experiences regarding performance of W2K file serving versus Samba
> on equal hardware ?

Anecdotal only. anecdotally if the machine is just doing that then samba is
marginally faster. In mixed workloads the linux box I am thinking off is
markedly faster. However I have no metrics only good reports from on-site
techies (who might be biased).

The sole remaining Windows NT box is/was doing a financial app called
"sage" which is being ported to linux (but wasn't available when
I stopped being involved). Luckily MS strode to the rescue with their
purchase of Navision
. This has spurred Sage into doing a linux version....

It's where I got my copy of Win2K server from & the backup/admin
box...is where I got my copy of Win2K pro from...

> As the existing system has user and group names
> longer than 8 chars, am I havind any problems here ? How about NTFS
> rights. Can I map everything on the Linux system or are there problems
> to be expected.
>

I haven't/hadn't seen any problems. Re user disk quotas there was some
setting up to be done.

With the retiring of NT4.....oddly SMB with winbind might be the best thing
for WinNT style domains....

> Also there is an MS ISA server that needs to authenticate against the
> new system/NT domain, are there problems to be expected or can Samba
> handle this also?
>

Don't know. Have a look. I know that in the above comp Samba does the NT
domain master bit for the other NT4S machines as they are/were shifted
(e.g. the DB2 boxes).

http://us2.samba.org/samba/ftp/cvs_current/docs/htmldocs/samba-pdc.html

http://us2.samba.org/samba/ftp/cvs_current/docs/htmldocs/samba-bdc.html


Adam


> Peter
>
> p.s. The existing NT4 server also has Exchange 5.5 installed, but this
> is something that I want to consider separatly (maybe through another
> server).

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-4