HP makes Samba dance longer on 3000
April 23, 2007
Last month we updated our community on the declining fate of Java, the open source language extraordinaire — unless you wanted to use the MPE/iX version. But HP's lab has been working on another open source mainstay, Samba, the file sharing and printer sharing service that's been on the 3000 since the middle of the 1990s.
HP's Jeff Vance posted a brief announcement about the HP port of some of the Samba 3.0.22 features.
Virtual CSY has ported Samba version 3.0.22 to MPE/iX. Not all features are supported. For more information please see Jazz at jazz.external.hp.com/src/samba and the linked-to Communicator article.
Samba patches are available for 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5, but all are currently in Beta-Test status. If you use Samba, now is the time to try out the latest version.
Thanks to Sagar who did the port! Sagar is also writing a white paper describing his porting experiences.
Samba has a much more active user base among HP 3000 customers than Java. As a sharing service Samba is a common gateway between HP 3000s, as well as a bridge from the 3000 to other platforms.
With its port of part of 3.0.22, HP has delivered
- Encrypted password mechanisms
- A new password database back-end (since Samba's password databases are different from the MPE HPUID.PUB.SYS user database)
- The account management tools sambpasswd and pdbedit
- An enhanced "net" command which now works "just like those on Windows and DOS systems." (If you don't know what DOS stands for, grab the oldest IT worker you know and ask.)
Plus another seven features HP has ported to the MPE/iX Samba, with details at that Communicator article Web page. HP's even listed the Samba features it did not port:
1. PDC/BDC:
Due to inability to create machine trust accounts with Samba/iX, PDC, and BDC remain unsupported.2. ADS:
Samba-3 clients can join as member of any Microsoft 200x ADS server only if the native system supports the Kerberos authentication mechanism. Since the native system MPE/iX does not support Kerberos, ADS domain membership is not supported.Also, Samba-3 does not support Active Directory Server domain controller. Hence, ADS is not supported on MPE/iX.
3. CUPS printing support:
CUPS printing is not supported on MPE/iX due to the absence of the required CUPS libraries.4. Winbindd:
Since the C library on MPE/iX does not support NSS (Name Service Switch) and PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module), it is not feasible to support winbind.5. MySQLSam and XMLSam:
These two passdb backends remain unsupported due to their requirement of host MYSQL and XML support, which is absent on MPE/iX.