Best network protocol?

chicgeek · 01-07-2003, 07:28 AM

As many people, I have a small home LAN. Mine is Windows-free; all workstations are Macs running the latest version of OS X while the server is a PC running Linux. Since I want to benefit from my server huge storage space, I need to chosse among the various available solutions to mount network volumes from my Linux server. From my knowledge, I can either use AFP (with netatalk), SMB (with samba), WebDAV (with apache), or NFS. I've been looking for some comparison reports, but haven't found anything. I would love to read about the differences of those protocols on the following aspects :

- speed (over say, a 100 Mbs network link)
- reliability and stability of OS X client
- resource forks support
- ownership & privileges

The only articles I found related to this topic don't answer all my questions ..
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...21016070543401
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...02030622101454

Any help or feedback on personal experiences would be very much appreciated!

BrunoUsesBBEdit · 01-07-2003, 08:26 AM

NFS is really simple and Linux native. Any flavor will already have it. True Unix Admins will say that it is not the fastest thing out there but I think it beats the others you listed.

If you are connecting from the Mac to the Linux, and would like to preserve Resource Forks you will want to use Netatalk.

Craig R. Arko · 01-07-2003, 08:36 AM

If you want reliable resource fork support you're best off using AFP, IMHO. I'm not sure how WebDAV responds with this but it might be worth researching in more depth.

chicgeek · 01-07-2003, 10:24 AM

Thank you both for your replies .. !

NFS definitely doesn't handle resource forks. I would be curious to test the performance of SMB, but this article makes me feel that it's not that fast ..

I just discovered that netatalk is available in .deb package. I'll have to give it a try.

01-07-2003, 07:28 AM	#1
chicgeek Prospect Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2	Best network protocol? As many people, I have a small home LAN. Mine is Windows-free; all workstations are Macs running the latest version of OS X while the server is a PC running Linux. Since I want to benefit from my server huge storage space, I need to chosse among the various available solutions to mount network volumes from my Linux server. From my knowledge, I can either use AFP (with netatalk), SMB (with samba), WebDAV (with apache), or NFS. I've been looking for some comparison reports, but haven't found anything. I would love to read about the differences of those protocols on the following aspects : - speed (over say, a 100 Mbs network link) - reliability and stability of OS X client - resource forks support - ownership & privileges The only articles I found related to this topic don't answer all my questions .. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...21016070543401 http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...02030622101454 Any help or feedback on personal experiences would be very much appreciated!

01-07-2003, 08:26 AM	#2
BrunoUsesBBEdit Prospect Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 5	I perfer NFS NFS is really simple and Linux native. Any flavor will already have it. True Unix Admins will say that it is not the fastest thing out there but I think it beats the others you listed. If you are connecting from the Mac to the Linux, and would like to preserve Resource Forks you will want to use Netatalk. __________________ -- Bruno

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01-07-2003, 08:36 AM	#3
Craig R. Arko Site Admin Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 3,965	If you want reliable resource fork support you're best off using AFP, IMHO. I'm not sure how WebDAV responds with this but it might be worth researching in more depth.

01-07-2003, 10:24 AM	#4
chicgeek Prospect Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2	Thank you both for your replies .. ! NFS definitely doesn't handle resource forks. I would be curious to test the performance of SMB, but this article makes me feel that it's not that fast .. I just discovered that netatalk is available in .deb package. I'll have to give it a try.