7
Chapter 3 Samba with TS on Windows
NT4/2000/2003
Terminal Server on Windows NT4, 2000, and 2003 is configurable to allow the underlying
Windows operating system to appropriately handle multiple incoming client connections for
Samba (or other) servers. It is configurable via the
MultipleUsersOnConnection
registry
parameter on the Terminal Server NT4 OS platform, the
EnableMultipleUsers
parameter on
the Terminal Server Windows 2000 platform, and the
MultiUserEnabled
parameter on the
Terminal Server Windows 2003 OS platform. For Windows 2000, as of August 2004, the
EnableMultipleUsers
parameter is only accessible after installing the Microsoft Hotfix from
Q818528. For Windows 2003, as of February 2006, the
MultiUserEnabled
parameter is only
accessible after installing the Microsoft Hotfix from Q913835 (included in ServicePack1).
MultipleUsersOnConnection is described in the Microsoft Q article Q190162, “Terminal Server and
the 2048 Open File Limitation.” As implied in the title, the registry parameter was actually
created to address a limitation on the number of file handles that a Terminal Server session could
utilize, but the end result was the establishment of unique virtual circuits (TCP/IP connections)
for individual client connections. This behavior provided exactly the functionality that Terminal
Server clients required to efficiently mount Samba file server services, and resulted in widespread
usage in the Terminal Server user community for this specific purpose.
With the NT4 registry parameter
MultipleUsersOnConnection
, or the Windows 2000
EnableMultipleUsers
set to 1 (enabled), or the Windows 2003
MultiUserEnabled
set to 1
(enabled), the Samba server acknowledges a discrete TCP/IP connection request for each unique
Terminal Server client, and therefore starts a new smbd user process to service each client. This
Storage Array
smbd
smbd
smbd
smbd
smbd
smbd
per client
