Hi all...

I need to copy all documents that are in use in an enterprize to a server, aply security permissions on some sub folders, and share the server directory in all computers.

I did it before with samba, but now thre will be no windows machines. Should I use samba or use NFS. Some people say NFS is not stable, that it looses connectivity. Is that right?? If it looses connectivity, will the user need to reboot the machine(losing the changes he made in the documment)???

thx.

You should use NFS to share files in your Linux-only (or Unix-only) environment. It's very stable and widely used for precisely the purpose you state. Its performance won't be as good as, say, a storage area network (SAN) or network attached storage (NAS), but it's a practical and cost effective alternative. Do your homework and make your NFS shares secure (see especially the root_squash and nosuid options) and run some file transfer tests to maximize your performance by tweaking parameters like rsize and wsize. You'll also need to explore nfs file locking to enable your users to edit nfs-served files without stomping on each other. Become familiar with the nfs, mount, and exports manpages. There are plenty of guides and tips on the web that are much, much more in-depth than what's been mentioned here. Explore them and you and your users should be well satisfied with NFS.

I agree. I will go further and mention that NFS performance will be far superior to that of Samba. Also, NFS gives you the ability to enable or disable "synchronous writes" which is extremely important if you absolutely, positively have to maintain absolute data integrity.