HP CIFS Server frequently asked questions

Is the HP CIFS Server compatible with the more popular backup utilities such as HP Omniback II and Legato? AS/9000 was somewhat incompatible with these utilities because it stored information outside the file system.
Common internet file system does not store security meta-data separately from the HP-UX hierarchical file system (HFS) or journaled file system (JFS) as does AS/9000, so supported HP backup utilities – including Omniback II – that work with HFS and JFS will also work with the HP CIFS Server.

Is the server side of the HP CIFS Server based on open source Samba?
Yes. HP is committed to submitting HP CIFS Server enhancements back to the open source community.

Does the HP CIFS Server allow common authentication between UNIX and Windows?
Yes, the HP CIFS Server makes it possible to achieve common authentication of your UNIX and Windows users. The solution depends on your implementation – in other words, the HP CIFS Server is not an "out-of-box" solution for common authentication.

Will the HP CIFS Server be made available on HP-UX 10?
No. The HP CIFS Server product depends on the pluggable authentication module (PAM), which is available only with HP-UX 11.

Does the HP CIFS Server support both Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000?
Yes. Specifically, Windows NT 4.0 uses NTLM for user authentication; Windows 2000 will use Kerberos. The HP CIFS Server, by means of the pluggable authentication module (PAM), supports NTLM authentication today – and will soon support Kerberos: a PAM-compatible version of Kerberos for HP-UX 11 is expected to be available in March 2000.

Can HP-UX 11 with the HP CIFS Server interoperate with HP-UX 10.20 systems?
Yes, the HP CIFS Server client on HP-UX 11 systems can access files on HP-UX 10.20 systems running Samba. (Samba is an open source Windows file-serving product for UNIX that provides the same file serving functionality provided by AS/9000.)

Can a HP CIFS Server client access the HP CIFS Server on HP-UX even if there are no NT systems in the network?
Yes. Even if there are no Windows NT systems in the network, a HP CIFS Server client can access a HP-UX HP CIFS Server server. The HP CIFS Server server must be configured as a standalone server. A HP CIFS Server client can then log onto that HP-UX HP CIFS Server server and be authenticated by the same server.

Can a HP CIFS Server client and a Windows (Common Internet File System) client share the same files on a HP-UX HP CIFS Server server?
Yes. Since both use the Common Internet File System protocol, they can share the same file on the HP-UX HP CIFS Server. Windows NT file access privileges – such as read-only, read/write, etc. – are mapped onto the POSIX ACLs (Access Control Lists) on the HP-UX file system.

As a file access protocol, Common Internet File System supports enforced file locking. Is this fully supported in the first release of the HP CIFS Server?
The HP CIFS Server fully supports enforced file locking. The first release of the HP CIFS Server client has no support for file-locking semantics. This will be added in a future release.