Big CIFS/SMB3 Improvements Head To Linux 4.19

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Big CIFS/SMB3 Improvements Head To Linux 4.19

Linus Torvalds has merged a rather significant set of patches for improving the CIFS/SMB3 support in the mainline kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.19-CIFS-SMB3

[jpg44]

I hope this stuff is in kernel modules so you don't need to load it if you don't need to use it. I would prefer a userland solution myself for SMB, if SMB is to be used at all.

[starshipeleven]

I hope this stuff is in kernel modules so you don't need to load it if you don't need to use it.

It's of course intertwined inextricably with the kernel core functionality, why are you even wondering?

Seriously, it's even written in the article.

I would prefer a userland solution myself for SMB, if SMB is to be used at all.

Userland can't create a virtual filesystem on its own so a pure userspace approach has significant limitations. Your share would be like a ftp server you can only access with a client software, but other applications wouldn't be able to see its folders to read/write in it directly.

For the same reason, NFS requires kernel support too.

I would be more interested in a filesharing protocol that does not have the complexity and overhead of SMB, and is also not a horrid relic of a bygone age as NFS is. Webdav is also very meh.

Something like a Wireguard of network shares.

[jpg44]

It's of course intertwined inextricably with the kernel core functionality, why are you even wondering?

Seriously, it's even written in the article.

Userland can't create a virtual filesystem on its own so a pure userspace approach has significant limitations. Your share would be like a ftp server you can only access with a client software, but other applications wouldn't be able to see its folders to read/write in it directly.

You must being facetious. Ever heard of FUSE? People use filesystems all the time without it being in kernel.

[starshipeleven]

You must being facetious. Ever heard of FUSE? People use filesystems all the time without it being in kernel.

What people, what filesystems?

FUSE is mostly used for NTFS (and exfat) support on Linux, and its performance is kinda bad, it exists only for interoperatibility with Windows.

Samba is a resource pig already, if you add FUSE to the party it's going to be unusable.

[caligula]

It's of course intertwined inextricably with the kernel core functionality, why are you even wondering?

Seriously, it's even written in the article.

Userland can't create a virtual filesystem on its own so a pure userspace approach has significant limitations. Your share would be like a ftp server you can only access with a client software, but other applications wouldn't be able to see its folders to read/write in it directly.

For the same reason, NFS requires kernel support too.

I would be more interested in a filesharing protocol that does not have the complexity and overhead of SMB, and is also not a horrid relic of a bygone age as NFS is. Webdav is also very meh.

Something like a Wireguard of network shares.

Many iPad apps implement their own custom network sharing protocols. People love them.

[GrayShade]

There's also gvfs-smb, which is terribly slow because of its inefficient protocol usage, but will probably never be fixed.

[EarthMind]

I hope they put their focus on SMB-Direct more, because that's a killer high performing feature that Samba doesn't properly support yet. Having full support for it would be great for Synology NASes, so I can say goodbye to low performing ISCSI connections.

[Zan Lynx]

I hope they put their focus on SMB-Direct more, because that's a killer high performing feature that Samba doesn't properly support yet. Having full support for it would be great for Synology NASes, so I can say goodbye to low performing ISCSI connections.

That sounds more like a problem with the iSCSI implementation on one end or the other. I've used iSCSI over 10 Gbps Ethernet for virtual machines and it was indistinguishable from local SSD.

[NotMine999]

Many iPad apps implement their own custom network sharing protocols. People love them.

Is this post missing a "sarcasm" tag?