[Discussion] Thinking of going IMAC

[Douglas Clark]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2009 07:43:47 -0800 (PST), Mark Brueggemann wrote:

>> You shouldn't need SAMBA on ECS to connect to SAMBA on Linux. 
>
>>From the Netlabs site:
>
>Samba for eComStation (OS/2)
>OS/2's native implementation of SMB/CIFS hasen't been updated for 
>a long time and has some compatibility problems with modern Windows 
>SMB/CIFS implementations. 
>
>[snip]
>
>I will testify to the "some compatibility problems" exist.  Turns 
>out the Netlabs plugin isn't much better.  It's still in beta last
>time I checked (been in beta for years).
>
>The last time I was able to connect an eCS machine to windoze was
>a windoze 95 box.

Pardon me for reposting something from a year ago - but here goes:

9) One last final word on Netbios for Vista. In my very brief testing with Vista and netbios and Netbios 
over TCP/IP - I was NOT able to get Vista to connect to an OS/2 machine with an user account which 
required a password when using Netbios. I WAS able to get Vista to connect to an eComStation machine 
using a user ID which required a password using Netbios over TCP/IP. While this might appear as a 
concern, if you are using Netbios as your only protocol you are probably not worried about strangers 
accessing your computers because the only people that can access the machines are on your side of the 
router. The netbios you use on Vista is the same used on XP, and the installation procedure is exactly the 
same.

...

There is another document on the MS web site which explains that there are three methods for password 
authentication on Windows:

1) LM (the old method)
2) NTLM - which was introduced in NT
3) NTLM2 - which was introduced in XP, but made the default in Vista

And finally

Below is the excerpt from a message on the Microsoft web site about networking with Vista.
====================================================================
If you cannot authenticate when accessing a shared folder from a Windows Vista-based computer
on a computer running a version of Windows prior to Windows XP (such as Windows 98 or Windows 95),
a computer running an operating system other than Microsoft Windows, or to a network device,
the cause might be a mismatch in the configured support for NTLM 2, an authentication protocol
that is used for file and printer sharing connections. By default, Windows Vista is configured
to use NTLM 2.
=====================================================================

Microsoft changed the password authentication process twice over the years. The net effect (pun 
intended) of this is that Vista machines cannot, by default, connect via file and print services to other 
Windows machines before WinXP - according to Microsoft.  There is a registry setting which can be 
changed so that Windows uses the older (LM) authentication method.

If LINUX/SAMBA wants to be a server to other machines it should support all three authentication 
methods. My guess is that there is a configuration setting on Linux/SAMBA which determines which 
authentication method SAMBA uses. If this is true, then OS/2 ECS file and print services should work fine 
with either LINUX/SAMBA. 

I have successfully connected ECS file and print services to all versions of Windows up to and including 
WinXP. Vista causes some problems.

Whether you consider this to be a problem of ECS not updating its file and print services, or Windows 
changing standards which makes other product incompatible, is a question of viewpoint.

Doug Clark
Old cheap grumpy guy.
Thanks

Douglas Clark