Linux on a Mac Network

[webby74]

Hi all

I am looking for some advice to see if the following is possible.

We are having a nice shiny new mac network installed over the summer. We are putting in na ew xserve and a AD windows server to support a handfull of windows clients and vmware/dual boot macs (and of course SIMS).

We are also looking to use some of older windows laptops as Internet resarch workstaions in some classrooms. The plan is to install Lunux (Edubuntu) on to these, to save costs, give a variety of OS and to have more reialable software

My question is can I authenticate these Linux workstations against AD? So that they can save research data to there user areas and then access it on a Mac or PC?

Any advice or pointers greatly appreciated

Andrew

[ahuxham]

You sure can, Samba 3 and joining Active Directory.

Very brief, to the point, precise. Your SMB.conf file will need modifying slighting with userhome, script locations, mappings etc, but its not hard.

allow domain logins = yes (is the final step)

You need kerberos (MIT or plain), and samba

(Advise is easy, the easiest answer is actually CENTERIS) 3rd party opensource software that joins without configuration to an AD domain, you'd still need to tweak a bit, but the groundwork and configuration will all be done Likewise Open AD

[CyberNerd]

(Advise is easy, the easiest answer is actually CENTERIS) 3rd party opensource software that joins without configuration to an AD domain, you'd still need to tweak a bit, but the groundwork and configuration will all be done Likewise Open AD

yes likewise is the way forward with ubuntu/AD

sudo apt-get install likewise-open

and follow the gui.
but are you sure you really need active directory? Its only best on windows clients, in a mixed environment you may be better off without it.
About - Free IPA

[webby74]

but are you sure you really need active directory? Its only best on windows clients, in a mixed environment you may be better off without it.

Hi thanks for your reply. Our supplier has suggested that we have active directory to manage all users accounts and home folders, even though most users will be Mac based. What I couldn't understand is why we couldn't have it the other way round (mac server for home folders and open directory to handle users.

Andrew

[localzuk]

I'd have said that if most machines are macs and you have a OD server then use that to manage the users. The AD is kinda pointless.

Linux will be able to authenticate against the OD server using very similar setup instructions to those for using AD authentication. And windows can authenticate against OD too if I remember correctly (I have an OD server, but our balance of machines is 210 windows computers to 8 macs, so we have an AD infrastructure).

I would say ignore your supplier and go with your gut.