Finally, a User-Friendly Samba Alternative?
 

Based on the various issues that everybody is having with Samba (evidenced through the hundreds of Samba questions :confused:) I thought I might clue everybody in on some software from Centeris Corporation called Likewise 2.0. The software was designed with the IT in mind to alleviate some of the issues faced through the hassle of interoperability between Linux and Windows. Centeris is an active contributor to the Samba project and actually employs some of the lead Samba developers including Jerry Carter. There are many features to the Likewise 2.0 software to include DNS, firewalls, file, print, and web server support. This can especially be useful for IT's new to Linux environments (there are also power-user features for the Linux savvy admins who want to use command-line interfaces or SSH sessions to remotely manage Linux servers). I'm very interested in everyone's opinion on the software. Centeris offers a free 30-day trial that is definitely worth the time to look into. Centeris software developers are eager for new input, tell me what you think.

Centeris Likewise 2.0

Here's anotherone http://www.collax.com

I was reading over the Collax page, it seems that it still doesn't fill the gap between Windows and Linux, isn't it apples and oranges? According to the Collax website you have to purchase their special Linux equipped servers, as with Centeris Likewise 2.0 you can use your existing servers. I don't know, but for an administrator with a large workstation (running 2 or more Linux servers) would it really be feasible to replace them?

Has anybody tried it yet?

Give me $349 and I'll try it. :)

Hahaha, let's not and say we did...

and you can just get the free 30-day trial.

:twocents: <---- my 2 cents.

All of the distributions I've used have had a gui tool to configure samba. I think the reason there are so many samba related threads is because the first thing a lot of people want to do when they try linux is share files and access their windows shares over the lan. I don't think the thread count means it's difficult, it just has a much higher linux newbie ratio than other *nix services.

I agree with you, but at the same time I think that it's worthy to note the fact that you're going to have ITs that aren't really Linux savvy and don't have the time to tread down the Samba troubleshooting road that so many admins go down. When you're dealing with a large amount of workstations and/or dealing with a lot of the basic troubleshooting sometimes it's worthy to go with the user-friendly software. I mean, some of the Samba developers are employed at Centeris, so maybe Likewise 2.0 is worth a second glance. Despite X number of thread counts, and yes there are a handful of Linux newbies (myself included) it's pretty sweet that there's software like this to cut out some of the hassle.

Check out the screenshots.

So the easy solution is to pay $349 to solve a SAMBA problem? LOL Seriously, if you just spend 30-45 minutes reading this forum on SAMBA, or the actual SAMBA documentations on their website, then you will understand it. And if someone still isn't able to understand SAMBA, then they should just use the $349 to buy a Windows Server 2003 server license, or pay me $50 and I'll set up SAMBA for them. LOL Plus you would get much more with Windows Server 2003

Yeah, but $349??? :(

When you weigh the pros and cons you see that a. you're getting a quality product b. sometimes forking over the $349 might be worth it, especially if you gauge the amount of hours that it might take an IT to troubleshoot various Samba dilemmas.

I know if I was a CIO and I had the option for one of my IT guys to spend all of his time trying to troubleshoot and figure out Samba or spend the money buying software that does it for you i'd go ahead and tell him to buy the software.

Your thoughts?

I agree with Micro420 - $349 is close to the price that an SME would expect to see on an OS. Big companies just hire whole admins... Layering an invasive third-party system on top of a distro is also potentially risky - this makes me think of CPanel. If Centeris was to make an arrangement with a distro vendor and ship systems with these tools integrated in (Ubuntu server + Centeris ?), then I'd be very interested.

So far the supported Linux OS for this software are Redhat, Suse, CentOS, and Fedora. For the Windows savvy IT with less Linux expertise it seems like a feasible solution.

I was reading this article in Network World and they're partnering with IBM, Microsoft, Novell, and Red Hat. A good read nonetheless.

Going to one of those packages would seem to negate all the reasoning for going to Linux. Why not just buy a windows server and use Active Directory?

Are you serious? I know a LOT of IT's that have at least 1 or 2 Linux servers, not to mention the fact that they don't require licensing... Linux servers can serve different purposes too. Anywho, that last post is irrelevant to the discussion here as to whether you should use just Samba or a developer package, because anyone who uses Samba has a Linux server (or a virtual one). :tisk:

there are also a variety of tools available for free to assist in the configuration and management of a samba server.. http://us1.samba.org/samba/GUI/

SWAT (included with samba) and Webmin being the 2 that come to mind first, there is also the redhat-config-samba tool

$350.00 PER SERVER does seem a bit steep for a tool just to assist with linux config. Might as well just buy RHEL and call RH support for assistance in configuring it. Webmin as cited earlier covers most if not all of the items listed on the Centeris page.. it's web based and can be used to configure Linux servers from a web browser on any platform..

I'll give the Centeris software props for a really nice, clean user interface though.. They did a nice job of putting it together.

I'm kind of curious why a tool to manage Linux servers CAN'T run on a linux machine.. shouldn't I be able to manage my linux machines from a linux machine ? reminds me of SecureComputings web Content filtering solution that runs on Windows or Linux but ALWAYS requires at least one Windows server to handle the reporting engine.. kinda defeats the purpose of choosing the linux based solution if you ask me..

and ultimately they support RH and Suse solutions, true they are the 2 gearing for enterprise shops, but I prefer to run Debian on my servers..

It is nice that they include CentOS in their supported platforms, When I was doing the trial of SecureComputings product which called for RHEL I tried to do the trial on a CentOS box, I mean I didn't want to go BUY RHEL just to run a trial. CentOS is essentially the same thing. unfortunately for SecureComputing they refused to offer support during the trial period becvause I was on an 'unsupported platform'.. I never got it working right and they never made the sale...

Yeah, still, when reading through the Samba mailing list i've found that SWAT can still create quite a headache :confused:. Looking at the features and benefits page they do more than just create easy Samba configuration, they also have DNS and Apache configuration. After e-mailing Jerry Carter, Centeris is working on supporting Debian and Ubuntu as well as making the software Linux OS friendly. I guess you can say the more supported distros the higher user base. One word: sweet.