File Server

[5mart3ch]

Hi, need help with SAMBA file sharing. I built a new proxmox v5.3 system and want to use it as a file server for Windows shares. There are nine drives a) 600GB SSD drive for proxmox and b) 8X 4TB HDDs setup as ZFS RAIDZ2. I plan on using /tank/media for videos and music and /tank/data for general file storage.

How do I setup SAMBA sharing?
What is best practice for file sharing? Setup SAMBA from host or LXC container (like Turnkey file server)?
What is CIFS plugin in v5.2? Is this an easy way to share my ZFS datasets from the GUI? Is CIFS same as SAMBA say v3.0?

 

[LnxBil]

How do I setup SAMBA sharing?
What is best practice for file sharing? Setup SAMBA from host or LXC container (like Turnkey file server)?
What is CIFS plugin in v5.2? Is this an easy way to share my ZFS datasets from the GUI? Is CIFS same as SAMBA say v3.0?

Yes, setting up Samba inside of a LX(C) container is the best choice. Proxmox VE is a virtualisation software, so there is no samba frontend and never will be. There are other software projects that solve your problem just google for Linux Fileserver.

 

[5mart3ch]

Thanks for the info. I am trying to understand the pros and cons of both methods. Please correct me below if I got it wrong.

1) Samba on host:

• No extra layer. Not virtualizing on top of host.

2) Samba in LXC:

• A best practice to leave the host (proxmox) as clean as possible. Any upgrade or rebuild of host will not affect samba configurations.
• Being LXC, it is as fast as possible. Close to bare metal speed. No need for virtIO drivers used in VMs. Support for 10Gbps Ethernet not being a problem?
• Some security layer by not exposing directly on host?
• Able to backup and restore LXC container.

 

[guletz]

Hi,

There are many pro/con for each variant. The main ideea is to not use any service directly on the PMX host, if you do not
have other options. Yes LXC is a good option, but from security perspective, is beter to use VM / kvm.

 

[carsten2]

Is it possible to access older versions (snapshots) via windows client, when ZFS ist bind-mounted into LXC?

 

[LnxBil]

Is it possible to access older versions (snapshots) via windows client, when ZFS ist bind-mounted into LXC?

Yes, if you use your ZFS dataset as the share root.