Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
On Wed, 2013-07-24 at 11:19 -0700, Paul D. DeRocco wrote: I'm working on a couple of Yocto Project based embedded projects, one using a Gumstix Overo board and the other using an Intel Atom motherboard. Both need a simple Samba server, which isn't included in the standard build. The only existing Yocto-compatible recipe for Samba is an OpenEmbedded one for version 3.6.8. I was quite surprised to find that adding Samba almost tripled the size of my Atom build. I understand that version 4 is quite a bit smaller, but we're still talking many tens of megabytes of stuff. I would think there would be lots of people in my boat, who are doing embedded systems and who would like to include a really simple SMB file server. For instance, a data acquisition system needs to record large amounts of data to a local disk, and then provide access to it over a network so people can bring it into Matlab or other tools. A CNC machine tool system needs a way to have Gerber or other files loaded into them. A media server needs to be able to serve up video or audio files. Any embedded device needs to have a way of being fed configuration data, or having its firmware upgraded. The requirements for such a system are much smaller than what Samba provides: * It only needs to serve files, not printers or other resources. I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing Samba code base. It's certainly way above my abilities, but it may be something that someone on the Samba team could do without mounting a major development effort. How many other people would find such a system useful? One thing we have found when developing Samba is that very quickly we find that one thing depends on another. It isn't easy to 'just do the basics'. Indeed, the AD DC isn't actually that large, compared with so much else that we need. That isn't to say that for example printing comes free - and I think there even is an option to disable that code - but a 'cut down samba' isn't free either. Much of the bulk comes from library code we have come to depend on across the whole sever. Andrew Bartlett -- Andrew Bartlett http://samba.org/~abartlet/ Authentication Developer, Samba Team http://samba.org Samba Developer, Catalyst IT http://catalyst.net.nz -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
From: Andrew Bartlett [mailto:abart...@samba.org] One thing we have found when developing Samba is that very quickly we find that one thing depends on another. It isn't easy to 'just do the basics'. Indeed, the AD DC isn't actually that large, compared with so much else that we need. That isn't to say that for example printing comes free - and I think there even is an option to disable that code - but a 'cut down samba' isn't free either. Much of the bulk comes from library code we have come to depend on across the whole sever. That all may be true, but when it's around eighty megabytes, something's wrong. That's a Microsoftian level of bloat. -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
[Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
I'm working on a couple of Yocto Project based embedded projects, one using a Gumstix Overo board and the other using an Intel Atom motherboard. Both need a simple Samba server, which isn't included in the standard build. The only existing Yocto-compatible recipe for Samba is an OpenEmbedded one for version 3.6.8. I was quite surprised to find that adding Samba almost tripled the size of my Atom build. I understand that version 4 is quite a bit smaller, but we're still talking many tens of megabytes of stuff. I would think there would be lots of people in my boat, who are doing embedded systems and who would like to include a really simple SMB file server. For instance, a data acquisition system needs to record large amounts of data to a local disk, and then provide access to it over a network so people can bring it into Matlab or other tools. A CNC machine tool system needs a way to have Gerber or other files loaded into them. A media server needs to be able to serve up video or audio files. Any embedded device needs to have a way of being fed configuration data, or having its firmware upgraded. The requirements for such a system are much smaller than what Samba provides: * It only needs to serve files, not printers or other resources. * It doesn't need a client, or any of the functionality related to a client. * It doesn't need to deal with domains, let alone be a domain controller. * It doesn't need to provide separate user accounts. * The only security it needs is perhaps a password for reading, and maybe a different password for writing. * Since these devices are generally closed boxes with no general-purpose command line interface, there's no need to encrypt passwords internally. * It can assume it's being connected to a fully functional network, so doesn't need to be a master browser. * It doesn't need to support multiple interfaces. * Its only configuration parameters would be a machine name, workgroup name, list of shared folders, and one or two passwords per shared folder. * It doesn't need most of the command line tools currently used to configure, monitor and debug the system. Sounds to me like the sort of thing that could be done in under a megabyte. I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing Samba code base. It's certainly way above my abilities, but it may be something that someone on the Samba team could do without mounting a major development effort. How many other people would find such a system useful? -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
I'll bite... smb/cifs is not a simple protocol suite, see my comments in-line On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: The requirements for such a system are much smaller than what Samba provides: * It only needs to serve files, not printers or other resources. smb without an AD domain needs rpc and for network browsing nmb. * It doesn't need to deal with domains, let alone be a domain controller. smb namespacing (for lack a better word) effectively treats a single standalone PC as a domain. I know this is over-simplification/generalization... * It doesn't need to provide separate user accounts. I guess you could compile it so that it only anon connections are used, but cifs still has to deal with users * The only security it needs is perhaps a password for reading, and maybe a different password for writing. cifs doesn't do this. the old smb version that win95 used can, but modern OS's don't like talking to them. * Since these devices are generally closed boxes with no general-purpose command line interface, there's no need to encrypt passwords internally. smb/cifs expect a challenge/response hash system. if you store only plain text on the server, you'd have to generate the hash every time to want to have auth. * It can assume it's being connected to a fully functional network, so doesn't need to be a master browser. it still has to participate or you won't be able to browse to it. I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing Samba code base. It's certainly way above my abilities, but it may be something that someone on the Samba team could do without mounting a major development effort. How many other people would find such a system useful? what you want as an end product is totally possible, and practical. It may even be feasible to make a bare cifs server that can't be browsed and you have to connect to by IP, but I don't think most people expect this. Basing it off the existing samba codebase is probably going to be a lot more work than just writing it from scratch. Maybe a few methods or classes can be pulled from samba as a start. maybe. however, all the use cases you've mentioned can be accomplished via ftp or http, for which there are a few light weight server options already and all OS's already include clients for. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
From: Chris Weiss [mailto:cwe...@gmail.com] I'll bite... smb/cifs is not a simple protocol suite, see my comments in-line On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: The requirements for such a system are much smaller than what Samba provides: * It only needs to serve files, not printers or other resources. smb without an AD domain needs rpc and for network browsing nmb. * It doesn't need to deal with domains, let alone be a domain controller. smb namespacing (for lack a better word) effectively treats a single standalone PC as a domain. I know this is over-simplification/generalization... * It doesn't need to provide separate user accounts. I guess you could compile it so that it only anon connections are used, but cifs still has to deal with users * The only security it needs is perhaps a password for reading, and maybe a different password for writing. cifs doesn't do this. the old smb version that win95 used can, but modern OS's don't like talking to them. * Since these devices are generally closed boxes with no general-purpose command line interface, there's no need to encrypt passwords internally. smb/cifs expect a challenge/response hash system. if you store only plain text on the server, you'd have to generate the hash every time to want to have auth. * It can assume it's being connected to a fully functional network, so doesn't need to be a master browser. it still has to participate or you won't be able to browse to it. I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing Samba code base. It's certainly way above my abilities, but it may be something that someone on the Samba team could do without mounting a major development effort. How many other people would find such a system useful? what you want as an end product is totally possible, and practical. It may even be feasible to make a bare cifs server that can't be browsed and you have to connect to by IP, but I don't think most people expect this. Basing it off the existing samba codebase is probably going to be a lot more work than just writing it from scratch. Maybe a few methods or classes can be pulled from samba as a start. maybe. however, all the use cases you've mentioned can be accomplished via ftp or http, for which there are a few light weight server options already and all OS's already include clients for. Obviously, there's a lot I don't understand about the guts of Samba. But it seems a shame that if we want simple file sharing, we need to add nearly a hundred megabytes of code. Your comment about using FTP or HTTP is true, but it's sometimes it's more useful to be able to open files directly on a remote server, rather than having to copy them in and out. -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing this is interesting... https://code.google.com/p/impacket/source/browse/#svn%2Ftags%2Fimpacket_0_9_10%2Fexamples%2Fsmbserver -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
From: Ben Metcalfe [mailto:bwmetca...@gmail.com] How about Webdav? Yocto supports Java: http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-oracle-java/tree/README so Miltion.io java webdav may work? 40-70 Mb for the JRE but only a couple of Mb more for the milton IO Webdav server: http://milton.io/downloads/index.html Well, that would be nice if I already needed Java. Interesting. -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
From: Chris Weiss [mailto:cwe...@gmail.com] On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing this is interesting... https://code.google.com/p/impacket/source/browse/#svn%2Ftags%2Fimpacket_0_9_ 10%2Fexamples%2Fsmbserver Yes it is, since Python is already there in both my builds. Thanks. -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] Does anyone think a mini-Samba server would be useful?
If you've Python there are plenty of webdav options: http://akadav.sourceforge.net/ (under Twisted) and https://code.google.com/p/pywebdav/ seem to be the most mature. Best of luck; Ben On 24 July 2013 20:59, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: From: Chris Weiss [mailto:cwe...@gmail.com] On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Paul D. DeRocco pdero...@ix.netcom.com wrote: I wonder if there's a way to build such a mini-Samba out of the existing this is interesting... https://code.google.com/p/impacket/source/browse/#svn%2Ftags%2Fimpacket_0_9_ 10%2Fexamples%2Fsmbserverhttps://code.google.com/p/impacket/source/browse/#svn%2Ftags%2Fimpacket_0_9_10%2Fexamples%2Fsmbserver Yes it is, since Python is already there in both my builds. Thanks. -- Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paulmailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
