Roadrunner SMB

Roadrunner SMB delivers Elastic SMB for Amazon EFS: native Windows file services on the elastic, AWS native storage you already run. It deploys as a configurable 1 to 4 node SMB3 gateway that gives Windows users, applications, and virtual desktops domain joined file shares backed by EFS, without building or maintaining your own Samba infrastructure. It integrates with Active Directory, supports Kerberos authentication, enforces Windows ACLs, and preserves native permission inheritance, so users reach shared files over familiar UNC paths with standard Windows clients. Typical workloads include VDI and Windows DaaS desktops (Amazon WorkSpaces, Citrix, Windows 365), departmental shares, home directories, user profiles, and Windows file migrations to AWS. Roadrunner SMB is built for three groups in particular: teams running self-managed Windows file servers on EC2 who want to retire the patching, clustering, and DFS-R burden; teams running DIY Samba or CTDB gateways on Amazon EFS who want a maintained, supported SMB3 layer instead of unsupported sample code; and teams evaluating or paying for FSx for Windows who want EFS economics with native SMB. Amazon EFS uses NFS and enforces POSIX permissions only, with no extended attribute namespace for the standard acl_xattr approach in Samba to persist a Windows security descriptor. DIY Samba on EFS setups typically fall back to owner, group, and other mode bits for access control. Roadrunner SMB stores full NT ACLs in Amazon DynamoDB in your account, preserving Windows permission inheritance and deny semantics across every node, independent of the NFS version EFS provides. An Elastic SMB metadata acceleration layer reduces metadata latency for bursty, small file Windows and VDI workloads using an L1 RAM cache with DynamoDB backed distributed state, addressing the metadata heavy access patterns common to profile, desktop, and departmental shares, including the login storms that stress DIY Samba clusters most. Deployment is via AWS CloudFormation into your existing VPC, provisioning the required resources: Network Load Balancer, ECS cluster, IAM roles, security groups, and EFS backed share integration. A browser based Admin UI handles first time setup, Active Directory configuration, share management, cluster health, and software updates, replacing manual CTDB recovery scripts and SSH based cluster administration. Node sizing is configurable from 1 to 4. A single node is intended for evaluation and low cost non HA use; multi node deployments are designed for high availability production and can span Availability Zones, with self fencing to prevent split brain serving. Node target changes are made in the Admin UI and applied through the Roadrunner SMB CloudFormation stack as the system of record. Vulnerability management is part of the product, not a separate burden. The Roadrunner SMB container image goes through AWS Marketplace vulnerability scanning as part of normal listing maintenance, and security backports ship through the same automatic update channel as feature releases, with no manual patch cycles or CVE triage required on your end. Key capabilities include SMB3 file sharing backed by Amazon EFS; Active Directory domain join and Kerberos authentication; full NT Windows ACL fidelity via DynamoDB backed ACL storage, not the POSIX permission fallback of DIY Samba on EFS setups; a configurable 1 to 4 node deployment model with self fencing HA; Elastic SMB metadata acceleration for Windows and VDI login storms; a browser based Admin UI for setup, shares, health, updates, and support reports; CloudFormation deployment into your existing VPC; a vulnerability scanned image with security backports delivered through automatic updates; and hourly billing for only the Windows SMB shares and EFS GB of storage actually used. Roadrunner SMB software is billed through AWS Marketplace. Standard AWS infrastructure charges, including Amazon EFS and EC2/ECS resources, are billed separately by AWS.