Chapter 15. File Sharing

In this chapter we give you a quick guide to the two major ways in the Linux world to share resources between systems. First we cover Samba, which uses Microsoft Windows networking protocols to allow users on one system to read and write files on another system, and to send jobs to printers on remote systems. The advantage of using Samba is that Linux and Unix can be integrated almost seamlessly with Microsoft systems, both clients and servers. The Microsoft Windows networking protocols can be used for sharing of files between Linux systems, although the preferred protocol for that really is the NFS protocol.

We present both NFS and NIS, protocols developed by Sun Microsystems and used by Unix systems for decades. NFS, the Network File System, allows systems to share files between Linux and Unix systems in a manner similar to Samba. NIS, the Network Information System, allows user information to be stored in one place and accessed by multiple systems so you don't have to update all the systems when a user or password changes. Although NIS is not a tool for file and printer sharing, we present it in this chapter because it shares some components with its cousin NFS, and because it can make NFS easier to administer because NIS allows each user to have the same account number on all systems.

NFS and NIS are useful at sites where only Linux and variants of Unix are connected. Versions have been created for Microsoft systems, but they are not particularly robust and have never become popular.

Microsoft provides a complimentary NFS client and server implementation for Windows systems that has not been adopted into common use despite it being free of cost. The Microsoft Windows Services for Unix (SFU ) package includes an NIS server and over 300 Unix utilities for use under Windows. Even given this free availability Windows sites that wish to secure interoperability between Windows network clients and Linux systems prefer the use of Samba.

In addition to MS Windows networking protocols and NFS, there are several well known file and print sharing protocols. Linux has support for NetWare-style file and print sharing using IPX protocols , Macintosh-based file and print sharing (AppleTalk protocol), file sharing over protocols such as FISH (File Sharing over SSH), as well as WebDAV-based file services. We do not cover these protocols in this chapter.