NFSv3 and SMB/SMB2 Interoperability in Likewise Storage Services

IT professionals are continually striving to reduce the management costs of storage systems and to provide seamless cross-protocol access. NFS and SMB/SMB2 deployments struggle with three common interoperability problems: how to deal with multiple directories (NIS/LDAP/AD), cross-protocol access control, and differences in file locking semantics. Likewise Identity Services provide administrators with a means to interact with directory services and the addition of an NFSv3 server to the Likewise Storage Services architecture makes it simple to solve the other two. The result is a storage layer that does not require users mapping, provides equal access to the same user accessing files from different protocols, works around certain protocol limitations such as the 16 groups AUTH_SYS limitation, and provides support for cross-protocol locking.

Learning Objectives

Understand NFSv3 architecture as part of Likewise File Server
Learn how the Likewise storage architecture helps to solve NFS & SMB/SMB2 interoperability issues, like access control and locking
Understand issues arising from the user-space NFSv3 driver implementation, and their solutions