HP wants the 3000 to Samba its way onto the Windows NT dance floor. The Samba
freeware solution is a generic SMB server for multiple operating systems,
and it is
currently in the process of being ported by a host of HP 3000 customers and
HP's own
CSY lab staff. Samba will provide support for file and print sharing,
Windows NT Domain
style administration and Windows integration with HP 3000 operations.
With Samba operating at the server level on the HP 3000, users browsing via clients such as Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95 and Windows NT can use File Manager or Explorer to browse any shared resources on the HP 3000. No additional software is required on clients, and shared resources such as printers can be mapped onto local disk drives.
The product is important to the HP Commercial Systems Division's (CSY) effort to keep the 3000 linked with the latest networks and popular operating environments, according to CSY officials speaking at the recent Strategic teleconference. Users involved in the porting effort say that when Samba is ready, it can make the 3000 compliant with Microsoft's Common Internet Files System for Internet and intranet networks.
Samba has been in active use on HP-UX and Digital's VMS systems for years. The porting effort has been passed around the world of HP 3000 users over the Internet. Samba forms an extremely reliable and important part of client solutions for companies around the world, including sites that use it extensively in a mixed Unix, NT and Windows environment.
HP's Lars Appel and others are working on a shareware effort to bring MPE/iX into the Samba fold. The beta software is usable on 5.0 and 5.5 HP 3000 systems. So far, it can mount HP 3000 accounts and groups, as well as drag and drop files and edit them across platforms (for example, using Notepad to edit MPE files). 3k Associates is hosting the latest version of Samba on its public FTP server, ftp://ftp.3kassociates.com under the POSIX directory. The FTP site is the host for Samba source code, binaries, configuration file samples and Read Me files. Details are also at the Telamon Web site, www.telamon.com/samba.html.
HP 3000 customer Neil Harvey said that the greatest value Samba could supply is to make the HP 3000 appear as any other networked resource. "The real value of Samba is the server side," he said in an Internet posting during the testing. "This will allow the HP 3000 to play a really useful part in an NT environment."
Samba's client side "will basically replace FTP, WRQ Transfer, NFS and all other string and cardboard methods of getting and putting files onto other Samba servers, all NT servers, all Windows for Workgroups or Win 95 PC's," Harvey added.
NewsWire subscriber Michael Gueterman reported that he's "been able to get both a Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation client to connect to the Samba 0.2 port, although it did take quite a bit of patience and tweaking. Windows 95 seems to have fewer problems for me than NT at this point.
Geuterman added that his biggest problem with the current version is that clients regularly disconnect from the 3000, especially during multiple file copies from the client to the 3000. "Windows reconnects after about a minute, and you get the next file," he said. "During the disconnected period, I see the LAN activity light on my router go nuts. I found that I needed to allow the host/client to negotiate the protocol so I commented out the explicit protocol level in the smb.conf file.
Gueterman said that another handy addition is to add the following
parameters:
preexec = callci 'TELLOP SMB connect to %S from %m at %I'
postexec = callci 'TELLOP SMB disconnected from %S from %m at %I'
This enables him to see when the clients connect and disconnect to the various sessions on the 3000 (similar to the more traditional LOGON and LOGOFF console messages).
HP's testing also revealed problems with reading files of greater than 30K. The increased focus of HP on this solution should provide some extra attention to resolve this type of problem. HP is designating Samba as part of its Internet and Networking Solutions Team and plans to have a freeware version of the product posted on the CSY Jazz Web server this year.