Samba and Terminal Server, V1.06, October 2007
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Chapter 1 Introduction
Many organizations host file server and print server services on Samba open source servers,
usually running on UNIX or Linux operating systems. Client access to these services is typically
achieved by direct network connectivity from the client to the server. However, client access can
also be hosted and consolidated on a Windows Terminal Server.
A Terminal Server can be thought of as a client application and connectivity hub. A Terminal
Server can host applications, and also connect to system resources on other servers (and
operating system platforms), and export these services to remote clients. A client can then
connect to the Terminal Server, run applications, mount remote shares, and utilize the Terminal
Server processing power with little resource requirements on the remote client itself.
Like any other hub, the Terminal Server must have enough processing power and network
throughput to accept the level of client requests, process them, and/or distribute the requests to
the destination networked resources. Clearly, an effective Terminal Server usage design cannot
exist on a constrained processing platform or network. For example, if a user base of 20 clients
in a gigabit Ethernet LAN segment access a Terminal Server and then connect shares to a file
serving platform on an overloaded 10 base-T network, the network bottleneck from the 10 base-
T LAN segment will constrain client connectivity to the back-end file server and could result in
visible performance degradation when accessing resources from that machine.
Windows NT4 Terminal Server integrates effectively with Samba. However, operating system
changes in Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 have caused a bottleneck scenario that can
constrain Samba connectivity integration with Terminal Server on these operating system
platforms. A Microsoft hotfix addressed the problem for Windows 2000. Recently, the Windows
2000 fix has been incorporated into Windows 2003. It is important to understand the source of
the Terminal Server Windows operating system bottleneck, and then consider ways to
workaround it on Samba and Windows for those cases where the hotfix cannot be installed.