NFS Vs Samba Problem and Solution

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D4NM4N(Posted 2007) [#1]
If you are like me that has a Linux Based Fileserver and a Dual boot laptop or separate laptops, this may be of interest:

I discovered a little problem using BlitzMAX on Linux 2 Linux via SMB (Windows 2 Linux via SMB working fine). For some reason the file explorer window in blitzmax locks up when browsing SMB shares and trying to load files. Strange thing is, it is only MaxIDE (both fltk and gtk versions) that does this, all other apps seem to have no problems at all.

However, i found the workaround i needed. On the server i setup the /etc/exports file to contain my shared folders (programming, music, media etc) as well as setting them up in /etc/samba/smb.conf so technically i am sharing via both NFS and SMB systems.

Now i can use Blitzmax in both:
-Linux2Linux via NFS (which btw seems to work 100x better than smb/cifs in general)
-Windows2Linux via SMB

Originally I got put off using NFS as it looked really complicated but its actually really easy. For a how to on mounting NFS shares, simply google it, its actually much easier than setting up samba! I reccommend using the text file method as the Ubuntu 'share folder' gui tool only seems to allow one or the other (could be wrong).

The reason I like to do it like this is to have one place to develop from, wether im on windows or linux on my laptop or sitting at my desktop(server) the files are always the current version. For backup of this 'programming' share, I also use the SYNC & RAR commands to create a grandfather(rars for DVD) <- father(usb Hdd) <- son(HDD2) <- HDD method of backing up, which automatically runs using crontab.


Brucey(Posted 2007) [#2]
Yep... NFS is the only thing you really want to use when sharing on Linux.

As a bonus, OS X can mount your NFS points too, if you are so inclined :-)


D4NM4N(Posted 2007) [#3]
Cool, i may be getting a mac at some point to add to my collection.
I guess theres no point in asking if windows can map a drive to an NFS share :/


Brucey(Posted 2007) [#4]
That's why they invented Samba ;-)


D4NM4N(Posted 2007) [#5]
True, although I was hoping there was a:
"My Computer" --> "Out Of Control Panel" --> "Network settings"-->add service --> win2NFS (lets call it wamba! :)

or something, so i can ditch windows networking alltogether :)


Brucey(Posted 2007) [#6]
Actually, there are a few non-free NFS clients available for Windows.
Also, I expect cygwin can mount via nfs, although I've never tried it.

And then there's Microsoft. They have a Unix tools package of some sort which provides all kinds of unixy things. It might have some NFS utils. Search Google for more details.


D4NM4N(Posted 2007) [#7]
Ooo! Ill do some googling on that, thanks for the tip :)