[Cialug] Active Directory equivalent?

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 12:16 -0500, Donovan Skarin wrote:
> Company is 300 and some odd bodies, with 172 desktops and (currently)
> 4 servers. There's going to be a mix of Linux and Windows until we get
> all of the hardware replaced, with the Windows boxes ranging from 9x
> to ME to NT4.

This doesn't answer your question, but just a side comment... all of
those Windows systems work pretty well with "domain authentication"
which is well supported by Samba. You can set up your own directory
server and store your linux authentication there and let samba be a
primary domain controller.

This might be simpler than trying to recreate active directory. Various
linux distros have shipped with sample ldap schemas for this type of
work. I *think* I evaluated nss_ldap a while ago and it was designed
just for this type of thing.

Trick is, going from memory, getting your linux clients/desktops to
authenticate and login based on ldap stored credentials, then you can
setup samba to use the same and be a PDC for the windows boxes. I'll be
honest, I experimented with nss just enough to get Linux logins working,
I didn't really need the samba part, so can't speak with authority on
that.
-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode