open source LDAP + Windows clients

[VinylxScratches]

I know AD is probably the best solution but I would like to keep costs down. Basically, all I need the LDAP for is for centralized accounts and basic file permissions on either Windows 2008 or *nix file servers. What would be the best solution to look into?

 

[theevilsharpie]

If you already have Windows Server 2008 servers, why not use AD?

 

[Red Squirrel]

You can use Samba but you have to rejoin all the PCs back to the domain if you upgrade sometimes. This can really suck in a big environment as everybody looses their profiles and stuff, you can try to force to use the old profile but it often acts very flaky.

Really I wish Linux would come up with a better solution to AD. Imagine something that is mysql based that can be queried and stuff. It would be totally awesome.

 

[Genx87]

If you already have Windows Server 2008 servers, why not use AD?

This is a good question.

 

[VinylxScratches]

I don't have Windows Server 2008, well I do, but it's from school. I'm trying to design an infrastructure for myself using open source solutions and do a side by side comparison.

 

[theevilsharpie]

If you just want an open source LDAP server, give 389 Directory Server (aka Fedora Directory Server) a try.

If you want to build an open-source equivalent to AD, well, good luck with that. Samba4 might come close, but by the time its actually released, it'll be as out-of-date as Samba is today.

 

[VinylxScratches]

So there isn't a good solution for this to be equivalent to AD?

I'll give Fedora a try.

 

[VinylxScratches]

The Fedora solution looks promising but I'm confused. Is there no difference between a Fedora client and a Fedora server? I don't see any choices.

 

[Nothinman]

You can use Samba but you have to rejoin all the PCs back to the domain if you upgrade sometimes. This can really suck in a big environment as everybody looses their profiles and stuff, you can try to force to use the old profile but it often acts very flaky.

Really I wish Linux would come up with a better solution to AD. Imagine something that is mysql based that can be queried and stuff. It would be totally awesome.

OpenLDAP is going to be a hundred times better than MySQL for this and since that's what it was designed for and it's queryable too.

So there isn't a good solution for this to be equivalent to AD?

Nope. You can build your own with LDAP and Kerberos, but it's going to be a lot of work on your end. And if you already own a Windows Server license you have AD available at no extra cost.

 

[VinylxScratches]

I have found something called FreeIPA, I'm going to give it a spin.

http://www.freeipa.org/page/Impleme...ironment_%28Windows/Linux)_-_Step_by_step