[Server-devel] File Sharing on XS - (was:XS 0.5.1-dev03 with...)

[Martin Langhoff]

2008/12/31 Anna <aschoolf at gmail.com>:
> 2008/12/31 David Leeming <leeming at pipolfastaem.gov.sb>
>> I want to do a new install but can you let me know if I can install Samba
>> and how to set up access to a shared folder on a Windows PC on the LAN as I
>> have a large content collection and it takes ages to copy it all again by
>> flash drive. Or maybe there is a better way to do it.
>
> I was curious about that, too, so I looked into other alternatives as Samba
> can sometimes be a pain to configure.  It's also yet another service to run
> on the XS.
>
> I found an sshfs utility for Windows called Dokan.  And it's free for
> non-commercial purposes!  This might make more sense than fooling with
> Samba, especially if you only have one Windows machine to deal with.

Good tip about sshfs - I didn't know there was a workable Windows
implementation. Another route could be the Fuse-for-windows
implementation I frequently hear about.

But we have another path we an follow :-)

There are some patches for Moodle 1.9, written by me (and included in
2.0) that add support for WebDAV.

So this is a separate thread on this matter ("easy file sharing for
XS"?). So far

 - Samba
   - fastest, most mature
   - hard to configure clients (authentication issues, etc)
   - assumes reliable connectivity - clients lock up briefly if
connection vanishes
   - does not integrate well with moodle
   - not NAT-friendly

 - ssshfs
   - slow
   - well supprted on linux,  Dokan (?) for Win
   - authentication issues
   - does not integrate well with moodle
   - NAT friendly

 - WebDAV
   - a bit slow
   - well integrated with Moodle (including authentication)
   - we still have to do some minor auth work as we don't use
username/pass scheme which WebDAV implementations assume
  - NAT friendly
  - patches for moodle already exist, well tested and written by... me!

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff