[geeks] OSX and network filesystems

[Caleb Shay]

Well, here's what I do for a linux server feeding several different
OS's.

1.  NFS:  I have several flavors of UNIX floating around here at every
given time.  ANY of them can reach this, including OSX (just use
nfs://hostname in the connect to server dialog).  Over the last few
years, Linux's NFS support as matured greatly.  People who are still
whining about how bad it is are just parroting.  NFS does have major
security issues to keep under consideration, but if you are using this
on a private subnet in your home, I don't see it being much of an issue

2.  Samba:  I don't have any windows boxes here, but sometimes friends
come over with laptops and it's the easiest way to get the files back
and forth.  I don't have samba running all the time, I just start it up
as needed.  If I want to reach it with the OSX machine, it's smb://

3.  Appletalk:  The magic zero-setup protocol.  Before the move to OSX,
we used to have quite a few macs that relied on this.  Netatalk for
Linux is arguably the easiest file server to set up.  With zero
configuration it does encrypted authentication and allows each user
access to their home directory.  If you want to add one line to one file
you now have a shared directory.  And, since it is already creating real
files for the resource.frk, etc, you can actual do backups with sane
tools like tar.

4.  AFS:  Don't bother, kerberos is a pain in the ass, and AFS wants its
own dedicated partition. (but I'm thinking maybe you meant AFP, which is
just what apple calls Appletalk file sharing now).


Well, there's my US$0.02

Caleb

On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 01:24, Kevin wrote:
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> My mother recently made the switch from win32 to OSX.  Back
> when she was still using XP, i had setup a linux based Samba
> file server for her at home.  Works fine.
> 
> Now she has OSX and i'm not sure if i should ditch Samba for
> NFS or should i just keep it and go with the flow (AFS is too
> complex for me to want to setup over there at the moment,
> Kerberos and all).  I have heard some people bad mouth NFS
> altogether, stating that it is outdated, insecure and poorly
> designed from the jump.  I personally have only set it up and
> used it a few times so i wouldn't know.  I have also heard
> others state that linux support for NFS is lacking and
> immature.  Still it seems odd to keep a protocol that is 90%
> MS just to go between linux and OSX.
> 
> Anyone have any suggestions here?  Or any past experiences
> with NFS on linux w/ XFS, good or bad?  She uses the file
> server on an almost daily basis to move very large Photoshop
> files around.  The server is also for LAMP stuff and a
> firewall/router so any alternate solutions would need to
> support those functions as well.
> 
> Thanks,
> /KRM
> 
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-- 
/*---------------------------------------------------------------------
Caleb Shay                                   "UNIX _IS_ user friendly.
Programmer/System Administrator              It's just particular about
Providence, RI                               who its friends are."
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