Sharity

Sharity Compared

Sharity versus Samba’s smbclient

Smbclient is an FTP-like command line tool to transfer files to or from an SMB/CIFS server. If you want to edit a file using smbclient, you must first copy it to your local disk, edit it and then copy it back.

Sharity in contrast mounts the shared directories in the Unix file system. With Sharity, the file appears in your file system and you can open and edit it directly.

Sharity versus NFS

NFS (Sun’s Network File System) is a file sharing protocol used among Unix machines. NFS server software is available for Windows, but as a separate installation. NFS on Windows is often plagued by file permission conflicts and performance problems.

Sharity requires no modification on the server: It mimics a Windows client. By using the SMB/CIFS protocol, Sharity circumvents the security problems often seen with NFS.

Sharity versus Samba’s smbmount

Smbmount/smbfs and Sharity are pretty similar: Both mount the shared directories directly in the Unix file system. However Sharity has additionally these advantages:

  • Available for Solaris, AIX, HPUX, IRIX and other OS (smbmount is only available for Linux).
  • Browses network resources similar to Windows “Network Neighborhood”.
  • Permissions for mounted shares don’t need to be determined at mount time, any user can authenticate to the server to gain access.
  • Supports DFS and ACLs.
  • Sharity needs no kernel module. This is an advantage on custom Linux systems such as Rackstar OS, where one wants to avoid changing the kernel.

Sharity versus Apple’s SMB client in Mac OS X

These products also have a lot in common - both make shared directories available as network drives. Sharity nevertheless provides additional features:

  • Browsing of workgroups and servers works more reliably.
  • Network drives are not being disconnected after an extended sleep.
  • Compatible with Windows 2003 (implements SMB signing).
  • Implements NTLM, NTLMv2, NTLMSSP and Kerberos authentication.
  • Supports DFS and ACLs.

Assured by this comparison? Test the trial version of Sharity.