Accessing Files Remotely with Linux: Recent progress with the SMB3.1.1 client and servers and where do we go from here?

Linux's ability to access files remotely via SMB3.1.1 continues to improve. Many new SMB3.1.1 features and optimizations have been implemented and with the new kernel server Linux (ksmbd) in mainline Linux there are now multiple Linux server options (Samba and ksmbd). Performance has improved with better use of leases in metadata caching, and dynamic reconfiguration of network interfaces and enhanced parallelization has improved multichannel performance. Support for compressed network mounts and SMB3.1.1 packet signing has also progressed, and the read ahead and offline caching mechanisms have been rewritten. Cross-mount server side copy is now possible too. Security improvements have been made, including removing support for weaker legacy authentication algorithms. The kernel server has made great progress, including some great RDMA (smbdirect) performance improvements and improvements in quality and testing. This presentation will go through the features added over the past year to the Linux client (and kernel server) and demonstrate how they help common scenarios, accessing a wide variety of SMB3.1.1 servers: including the cloud (e.g. Azure), Samba, Windows, Macs and the new Linux kernel server (ksmbd), and also discuss where we need to go to improve SMB3.1.1 even more for Linux.