Managing User Connections with SMB Protocol (SMB2/SMBX)

About SMB

Modern Mac clients connect to file servers via Apple's implementation of the SMB protocol (SMB2/SMBX) by default. Xinet 19 has added support for SMB connections, from both Mac clients as well as PC clients on all of its supported server platforms.

Note: AFP connections are still possible and also supported by Xinet. However an “afp://” protocol prefix must be added to the server address. See Managing User Connections with Xinet AFP Service.

About the Transition from AFP to SMB

We provide a smooth transition path to SMB2 and still allow AFP connections, in addition to SMB2 connections, until the time when AFP is end-of-lifed by Apple. All customers with current maintenance contracts will automatically be allowed to use additional named SMB users when they upgrade to Xinet 19.

Xinet licenses are based on concurrent AppleShare (AFP) user seats. We have been using a concurrent user license model, which means that any user account can log on to a Xinet server and mount Volumes over AppleShare (AFP) as long as the total number of allowed concurrent logins is not exceeded. For example, a 32-user license means that no more than 32 Mac clients (independent of user names) can be logged in at the same time.

For SMB we have implemented a named user license model. This means that an existing or new user account needs to be enabled to view Volumes over SMB. If your license allows you to have 50 SMB users, it means that 50 user accounts can have the new option, “Can access SMB Volumes” turned on. This setting can be found on the user page in the Xinet nativeadmin interface.

To simplify our user packs, we have mapped your existing licenses with the maximum number of AFP users in the range of AFP users you already had, and in addition we provide double that number of SMB users. This new mapping is shown in the chart below.

Table 0-1

Mapping of Existing AFP Packages to SMB Packages

Existing AFP User Packages	New AFP User Packages	Additional SMB User Package
4 - 10 users	25 users	50 users
16 - 32 users	50 users	100 users
50 - 100 users	100 users	200 users
128 - 250 users	250 users	500 users
500 - unlimited users	unlimited users	unlimited users

Example:

A customer with a 32-AFP users license upgrades to Xinet 19. The new license will allow 50 concurrent AFP sessions, and optionally 100 users can be enabled to connect via SMB2.

See the next page for information on how to install and configure SMB on Mac and Linux servers.