This tool installs a file server and joins it to the Linuxmuster server's AD. The share is configured on the server for the specified school and can then be integrated into the Linuxmuster server via the DFS configuration. All home drives, share drives, and project drives are then located on the separate file server.
- Separation of services (AD on the Linux sample server, files on the file server)
- Better backup strategy (files can be backed up separately from the AD)
- Security (a separate file server can be used for each school (multi-school setup))
- Easy maintenance and updates (AD remains available during a file server restart or update)
- Performance improvement (see Performance improvement)
| Linuxmuster.net official | ✅ YES |
|---|---|
| Community support | ✅ YES* |
| Actively developed | ✅ YES |
| Maintainer organisation | Linuxmuster.NET |
| Primary maintainer | [email protected] |
* The linuxmuster community consist of people who are nice and happy to help. They are not directly involved in the development though, and might not be able to help in all cases.
wget -qO- "https://deb.linuxmuster.net/pub.gpg" | gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/linuxmuster.net.gpgsudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/linuxmuster.net.gpg] https://deb.linuxmuster.net/ lmn73 main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lmn73.list'sudo apt update && sudo apt install linuxmuster-fileserver- Add fileserver to
devices.csvand import the devices withlinuxmuster-import-devices. Example:
server;file01;nopxe;BC:24:11:4D:97:AB;10.0.0.101;;;;server;;0;;;;SETUP;
- Setup the fileserver
linuxmuster-fileserver setup [-d DOMAIN] [-u USERNAME] [-p PASSWORD] [-s SCHOOL]
| Parameter | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| -h | Helppage | |
| -d | Domain of the AD | linuxmuster.lan |
| -u | Username of an adminitrative user | global-admin |
| -p | Password for the administrative user (will be asked if not specified) | |
| -s | Schoolname for the share (same as in AD) | default-school |
As part of an internal benchmark, we evaluated the SMB performance of two shares:
file01 – a dedicated file server
server – a domain controller that also hosts file shares
We used the following command to upload and immediately delete a 1 GB test file (http://speedtest.belwue.net/random-1G) in each run:
smbclient //<target>/<share> -U global-admin -k -c "put random-1G;rm random-1G"Each test was repeated 100 times
The execution time was measured for every run
Average times were calculated for both servers
| Target | Avg. Time (Seconds) |
|---|---|
| file01 | 2.102 |
| server | 5.418 |
file01 is 61.2% faster than server
server is 157.7% slower than file01
A dedicated file server (file01) not only improves system architecture by separating concerns, but also provides significantly better performance in real-world SMB file operations.
This result reinforces the recommendation to avoid using domain controllers for file storage in performance-sensitive environments. A standalone file server improves throughput, reduces latency, and simplifies resource scaling.