Filepro-list Digest, Vol 42, Issue 50

[Boaz Bezborodko]

> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:31:48 -0400
> From: Fairlight <fairlite at fairlite.com>
> Subject: Re: Filepro-list Digest, Vol 42, Issue 48
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Message-ID: <20070727103148.B6583 at iglou.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Only Boaz Bezborodko would say something like:
>   
>> What I learned in the process is that the learning curve on Samba was 
>> steep enough that I probably would have been better off moving FP to 
>>     
>
> I don't recall samba as having a steep learning curve.  man smb.conf
> I've been through older versions (2.x) and newer (3.x) and had to migrate
> between the two.  It's never taken more than a couple hours to figure out
> what was wrong.
>
> The biggest issue was SuSE 10.1 having some issue whereby the registry got
> corrupted, and I wasn't aware they'd added one until I started digging.
> Remind me again why samba needs its own registry files?  Anyway, I think
> the user corrupted it in that case, although I can't prove it one way or
> another.  It could have shipped bad, it could have been
> misconfiguration--they screwed up enough else even using yast that it took
> longer to undo their damage than to do it properly from scratch.
>
> Which just goes to show you, having an admin tool isn't everything, you
> actually have to know what data you're putting into it.  And this was a
> person that keeps touting scoadmin as easy.  YaST makes far more achievable
> easily, but it's that "far more" that's at issue.  For instance, the
> user complains sendmail and apache are hard to configure on linux.  They
> can't configure it properly on SCO either, but they blame the OS anyway,
> nevermind that more tools are provided to do it at a basic level that they
> still can't get right due to lack of understanding of the basic subsystem.
> That annoys the hell out of me.
>
> What people -want- are psychic admin tools that do what they want, not what
> they tell it to do.  Anything less, and you get, "This OS is horrible
> compared to [insert their favourite OS]."  Sorry folks, it's not the OS,
> it's a lack of fundamental low-level knowledge.  Given that knowledge, you
> can do it at the raw level on any system without admin tools of -any- sort.
>
> And people complain that I come across as elitist when saying people in
> general should know what they're doing or have time to learn.  The truth
> is, -they're- the ones damaging their systems via ignorance.  It's a valid
> point they just don't want to hear because they've been indoctrinated into
> the, "All OSes should be PnP," school of thought.  I'm sorry, but after the
> hardware detection and driver loading is done, *nix should not be PnP in my
> opinion.  It's too powerful a tool to give to the ignorant.  It's like
> giving a .50cal machine gun to a 5yr-old, or letting kids drive at age 10.
>
> Okay, you may have touched a sore point, there. :) Nothing personal...more
> wrapped up in what I've seen in the past.  But citing the whole learning
> curve thing just sets it off.  The learning curve isn't that steep, and
> with power comes complexity anyway (usually), so it's actually ahead of the
> game.  I see no grounds for complaints unless something is made -so- overly
> complex that it's ludicrous.  Best example of needlessly complex that comes
> to mind is the sudoers file syntax.  THAT is needlessly complex, although
> pretty powerful.
>
> mark->
>   
No offense, Mark, but you were the one who was most hostile to my 
request for assistance in what I would have to know or learn to move 
forward.  An example of what I was looking for was a list or some links 
to some of the basic aspects of what I was looking to do.

For example, if someone was looking to set up a Samba server I would 
tell them to look up some basics (in no particular order and not 
comprehensive)

-- Understand Linux security via file permissions etc.
-- Decide if you need better granularity.  If you do then explore using 
ACLs and read up on Samba and its implementation of ACLs (I decided I 
didn't need to bother) and get a later version of Samba to support it.
-- Forget SELinux (as per your instructions- thanks for that help in 
case I forgot to thank you before) unless you absolutely need the extra 
protection--and most don't.
-- Install Webmin for some basic functions such as modifying the 
firewall setups.  Don't bother with it for Samba unless you are only 
doing a very basic setup.
-- If your setup is this complex then spend the money on decent backup 
software.  BackupEdge is easy to use and has so many different features 
and options its worth the money.  Yes, you can do wonderful things with 
basic Linux functions, but you'll spend quite a bit of time figuring 
them out and setting them up.  (I read up on them, but I didn't bother 
putting the time in.)
-- Learn the command line interface.  It's not the the GUI doesn't have 
tools that help, it's that they are so limited that they hide access to 
the functionality and features you probably need to modify for such a 
more complex environment.
-- If you want to set up printing and automatic driver downloading 
through the Samba server then read this:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/kpfeifle/SambaPrintHOWTO/Samba-HOWTO-Collection-3.0-PrintingChapter-11th-draft.html#9_1
Especially the tagged location for the "Point'nPrint".  Just 
understanding the need to "tickle" the driver setup will help you from 
wasting a lot of time trying to figure out why some drivers won't 
print.  (This isn't pointed out in all the documentation on the subject.)
-- Oplock setup for Samba use with FilePro (on the share level of the 
configuration file)
        level2 oplocks = no
        oplocks = no

I went up not a few wrong branches because of a lack of direction.  
Sometimes it was because I got an idea of how I might be able to use a 
particular feature only to find out later that I shouldn't have bothered 
for whatever reason.

Boaz