 | Level: Intermediate Divya Vikas (dipraksh@in.ibm.com), Software Engineer, IBM
Uma Chandolu (uchandol@in.ibm.com), Software Engineer, IBM
Puneet Mahajan (pmahajan@us.ibm.com), Software Engineer, IBM
18 Dec 2007 Follow along with this quick reference guide to configure AIX® Fast
Connect and SMBFS on AIX and Windows®.
Introduction
The Common Internet File System (CIFS), also known as Server Message Block (SMB),
is a standard remote file system access protocol over the Internet, enabling
groups of users to work together and share documents and printers across the
Internet or within corporate intranets. CIFS allows multiple clients to access and
update the same file, while preventing conflicts with sophisticated file sharing
and locking semantics. It also permits aggressive caching and read-ahead and
write-behind without loss of cache coherency, thereby increasing the performance,
which is the backbone of today's sophisticated enterprise computer networks. CIFS
complements HTTP and provides more sophisticated file sharing and file transfer
than older protocols, such as FTP.
File sharing between PC operating systems, such as Windows®, is commonly
implemented using the CIFS protocol, and file sharing between AIX® systems has
been implemented using the Network File System (NFS) protocol. Since these two
protocols being non-interoperable, products like AIX Fast Connect and AIX SMBFS
allow PC clients to access and share files on the AIX server and vice versa.
Overview of AIX Fast
Connect
AIX Fast Connect is server software that allows AIX servers to share files and
printers with personal computer clients running the following Windows operating
systems:
- Windows XP
- Windows 2000
- Windows 2003
- Windows NT
- Windows 98Windows
AIX Fast Connect provides the following:
- A rich set of security features
- High performance (SendFile API support and memory-mapped files )
- File safety specifications (so that multiple machines can access the same
file without locking problems and opportunistic locking)
- Maintenance and administration using the System Management Interface Tool
(SMIT)
- Secure authentication techniques (AIX-based user authentication, NT
pass-through authentication, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
support for user authentication, Kerberos-based authentication, and CIFS
password encryption protocols)
Figure 1. AIX Fast Connect
Note: AIX Fast Connect supports AIX 5.1 and above.
Installation
requirements
Install the following filesets to configure AIX Fast Connect:
Figure 2. Configuring AIX Fast Connect
Only the root user can perform the configuration of Fast Connect for the
AIX server; however, any user can access the configuration menu. Starting the Fast Connect server
There are two ways in which you can start the Fast Connect server:
-
Using SMIT
-
Using the command line
Using SMIT
- Enter
smitty smb.
Figure 3. Using SMIT
- Select the
Start Server.
- In the next screen, the command completes and displays the following message:
Server servername has started successfully on servername
|
Using the command line
- Enter
net start /load.
- To verify, run the following:
#ps -eaf | grep cifs
root 503820 1 0 Aug 23 - 0:00 /usr/sbin/cifsUserProc
root 565300 1 0 Aug 23 - 0:12 /usr/sbin/cifsServer
root 823380 757910 0 12:55:44 pts/2 0:00 grep cifs |
These two processes, associated with Fast Connect, are responsible for the
SMB request and response:
- cifsServer is the main server daemon; it is a main server process owned
by root.
- cifsUserProc is a client session daemon; there is one cifsUserProc for
each session. For every new request to the AIX Fast Connect server from
the Windows client, a new cifsUserProc thread is created.
Defining shares
There are two ways in which you can add a new file system share:
-
Using SMIT
-
Using the command line
Using SMIT
- Enter the following command:
#smitty smb.
- Select Server Shares > File Systems (Shared Volumes) > Add File Systems
(Shared Volumes).
Figure 4. Adding file systems
Using the command line
- Enter the following command:
#net share /add /type:f /netname:TEST
/path:/home/divya /desc:"File share test" |
Configuration of encrypted
passwords and defining a user
When the AIX Fast Connect server is configured for encrypted passwords, AIX Fast
Connect attempts to authenticate all incoming SMB usernames and encrypted_password
logins against the AIX Fast Connect /etc/cifs/cifsPasswd file. This file,
initialized and maintained by the net user command, is
a database of AIX Fast Connect users (and their encrypted passwords).
All AIX Fast Connect users defined by the net user
command should be AIX users.
The passwords of the Fast Connect users are distinct from (and might differ
from) the standard AIX passwords in the /etc/security/passwd file. When an AIX
user changes their password (using /usr/bin/passwd), the AIX Fast Connect password
for that user does not automatically change.
- To enforce encrypted passwords for AIX Fast Connect, type:
#net config /encrypt_passwords:2 |
- To configure a new user for encrypted passwords, type:
#net user username password /add |
Or
#net user username -p /add |
The
-p flag prompts for a no-echo password.
- To change a user's encrypted password and also update that user's AIX
password, type:
#net user username password /changeaixpwd:yes
|
Or
#net user username -p /changaixpwd:yes |
Once the above configurations are done, stop and start the server.
- To stop the server and unload the server daemon, type:
- To load the server daemon and enable PC clients to connect, type:
Now the Fast Connect server is ready to allow PC clients to connect and access
the exported file shares.
Mapping drives from the
PC clients
Typically, PC clients must define drive mappings to use the CIFS exported file
shares. These drive mappings can be done from Windows or from the DOS command
prompt.
You can use the following mechanisms to define or undefine mappings between PC
drives and CIFS file shares. For the following examples, assume that the NetBIOS
server name is indus19.in.ibm.com and that file shares test, test1, is defined.
For DOS, enter the following:
DOS> net help (help info for DOS)
DOS>net use F: \\indus19.in.ibm.com\test /user:tstuser tstpass
DOS>net use H: \\indus19.in.ibm.com\test1 (When username and password is not
specified in the command line, then a pop window appear asking for the username
and the password)
DOS> copy F:\oldfile H:\newfile (uses the mapped drives)
DOS> net use F: /delete (delete the mapped network drive) |
For Windows, do the following:
- In the Map Network Drive dialog box, select Windows Explorer > Tools > Map
Network Drive, or right-click Network Neighborhood and select
Map Network Drive.
- Select the drive from the Drive: drop-down list, and then Enter
the path. For example, see Figure 5 below.
Figure 5. Mapping drives
- To access the exported CIFS filesystems from Windows(Y:\), see
Figure 6 below:
Figure 6. Accessing the exported CIFS
filesystems from Windows
Here are some other useful commands:
Overview of SMBFS
AIX SMBFS is the client software that allows AIX servers to mount shares and
exports from the SMB server like Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2000, Windows
NT, or Windows 98 operating systems into the AIX Virtual File System (VFS). This
eliminates the need to install the NFS servers on the PC clients and to enhance
the file sharing between SMB servers and AIX through the VFS interface.
Components that make SMBFS
- The device driver for a pseudo device—This driver allows SMBFS
to communicate with the SMB server in case it needs to initiate a reconnection
or finish receiving a multi-packet response without the need to stop all threads
that are performing file operations.
- The file system interface—This interface supports VFS and
vnode operations.
- The SMB interface—This interface generates and retrieves SMB
information.
Basic configuration
AIX SMBFS requires the installation of the following filesets:
| Package | Description |
|---|
| bos.cifs_fs.rte | Run time for SMBFS |
|---|
| bos.cifs_fs.smit | SMIT Interface for SMBFS |
|---|
- On the server side, share the folder that has to be exported to AIX.
Right-click on Select Sharing and Security > Share this Folder >
Permissions tab > Check all the permissions - Full control, Change, and Read
> Apply and OK.
Figure 7. Sharing a folder
tstcifs is the shared folder, and the share name is tstcifs.
Figure 8. The shared folder
- On the client side, execute the following to mount the shares of the windows:
- Enter the following to ensure that the nsmb0 device is in the available
state. The device is a pseudo device that helps SMBFS to communicate with
the SMB server (Windows):
- If the device is not present, run
/etc/mkcifs_fs, which creates the nsmb0 device
and brings it to the available state.
- Run the following to create a mount point and give the full permission
to the mount point.
#mkdir /mnt
#chmod 777 /mnt |
- Run the mount command:
#mount -v cifs -n (servername)/username/password /(sharename) /(mountpoint)
|
Figure 9. The shared folder
The main functionality of the mount command is:
- To create a SMBIOD thread (It is the parent thread of SMBFS; It is a
kernel thread that creates the session and manages the connection. It also
helps in sending and receiving the requests and responses between the server and
the client. Every mount performed on AIX has a corresponding smbiod
thread.)
- To establish the network (NETBIOS) connection between the server and the
client
- To create a TREE CONNECT (directory structure of Windows is put in the
mount point of AIX box)
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About the authors | 
| | Divya Vikas is an AIX support specialist for SMBFS and Fast Connect software. She is part of IBM Systems and Technology Group for IBM Software Labs, India. Divya has provided active support to customers across the world on SMBFS and Fast Connect. You can reach her at dipraksh@in.ibm.com. |
| 
| | Uma M. Chandolu works as a software engineer on the AIX Development Support Security team in Austin, Texas. He has three years of extensive hands-on experience in AIX environments, and he is one of the focal points in the AIX support security area. He has expertise in AIX system administration and other subsystems and has experience handling customer critical situations. You can reach him at uchandol@in.ibm.com. |
| 
| | Puneet Mahajan is an advanced AIX technical support specialist with over seven years of experience in AIX system administration. He is currently the team lead of AIX remote support for Independent Software Vendors (ISV) at IBM Austin. You can reach him at pmahajan@us.ibm.com. |
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