File server considerations

There are two methods you can use to share files with your users, Samba and NFS. In fact, there's nothing stopping you from hosting both Samba and NFS shares on a single server. However, each of the two popular solutions is valid for particular use cases. Before we get started with setting up our file server, we should first understand the differences between Samba and NFS, so we can make an informed decision as to which one is more appropriate for our environment. As a general rule of thumb, Samba is great for mixed environments (where you have Windows as well as Linux clients), and NFS is more appropriate for use in Linux or UNIX environments, but there's a bit more to it than that.

Samba is a great solution for many environments, because it allows you to share files with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X machines. Basically, pretty much everyone will be able to access your shares, provided you give them permission to do so. The reason this works is because Samba is...