Qi Feng, 123RF.com
Visualize data throughput with SMBTA
Traffic Report
The SMB Traffic Analyzer (SMBTA) tool is implemented as a VFS module that allows a Samba/CIFS server to record traffic statistics on a Samba network. The SMBTA daemon stores this information in a database and makes it available via SQL, for example.
The architecture is clear cut and comprises a module in the Samba VFS (Virtual File System), a daemon, and a set of client tools (smbtatools) for evaluation and visualization. SMBTA uses an existing SQL database (sqlite3) to store the traffic data.
The developer and inventor of SMBTA, Novell's Holger Hetterich, has been working on his Samba Traffic Analyzer since the SambaXP Conference in 2007. His work has attracted attention in expert circles – including the Samba team – which has led to Hetterich's holding well-attended keynotes at Samba Xperience and other events.
In the meantime, Novell has supported this work by allowing Hetterich to dedicate some of his working hours to the development of SMBTA. Unfortunately, the work hasn't aroused much general interest, mainly because feedback of all kinds has been handled directly by Hetterich and not via mailing lists or the usual channels; however, this is just a matter of public relations. Although right now, the number of users is fairly low, that's likely to change when version 3.6 of Samba, which will include SMBTA as an official component, is released [1]. Although experienced admins would have no trouble sniffing typical NetBIOS traffic by pointing a port sniffer at the usual suspects, SMBTA focuses entirely on Samba traffic. This approach allows administrators to create comprehensive and meaningful statistics because the tool performs genuine data mining centering on the SQLite database. For example, SMBTA will let you target an individual user, share, or file for statistical analysis.
The client side has basically three
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