Ask Slashdot: Is Samba4 a Viable Alternative To Active Directory? 388
First time accepted submitter BluPhenix316 writes "I'm currently in school for Network Administration. I was discussing Linux with my instructor and he said the problem he has with Linux is he doesn't know of a good alternative to Active Directory. I did some research and from what I've read Samba4 seems very promising. What are your thoughts?"
No (Score:4, Interesting)
We finally switched out our last NAS that was running Samba. Too many small glitches. Not worth the hassle.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Poor administration is not the software / OS fault.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Samba has been around literally for decades and has seen constant reliable use.
You're suggestion that the software is new and poorly designed is invalid.
There are good admins and bad admins. If software that has been successfully deployed for multitudes of years has been a problem then bad admins are far more likely to blame.
- Dan.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's not. When it involves Linux or OSS, it's always the admin's fault. When it's a proprietary solution, it's bad software. You must be new here, get with it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Is it fair, to say, then, that Samba4 and AD are both good choices for people with strong admin background, but perhaps AD is a beter choice for someone who, for instance, administers the server in addition to other business tasks?
Not really.
If you want to admin Windows, then admin Windows, but don't pretend there's anything particularly challenging about setting up and managing Samba4 on Linux. Just step through one of the many guides. e.g: http://praxis.edoceo.com/howto/samba4 [edoceo.com]
Slashdot's an Apple/Microsoft site now, so most of the comments here will be FUD. That shouldn't deter anyone with an interest from trying Samba4. It's simple enough that even a MSCE shouldn't have a problem.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Your link itself noted glitches in Samba4:
The first one is kind of major, I would think: You can't even browse a network?!
Re: (Score:3)
That link describes the process of an old alpha11 installation. Samba is on RC4 last time I've checked.
As soon as they release a stable version I'll finally get rid of Windows 2003 HVMs and replace them with faster and lighter Linux PVs.
Linux-based shares (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, OK, granted for personal machines.
But you should at least be able to browse the available servers, right? What I see is the community will continue to put out buggy Windows interop software because M$ can't just hand over the AD source.
Anyway, like I said in another place in the discussion, the Linux community seems to have went about this wrong.
It would have been better to come up with a networking addon for Windows clients to allow them to easily browse and connect to resources provided by Linux servers in a hierarchical domain arrangement (basically, Domain Name System). So: ibm.com, fl.ibm.com, miami.fl.ibm.com, files1.miami.ibm.com, etc.
Auth handed by OpenLDAP and Kerberos. Remote login by RADIUS.
Some of that stuff would need some polishing around the edges plus integration, but again, writing your own Windows client DLL should seem to be much easier than divining and decoding messages passed around an AD network.
Also: it would have been nice to really think outside the box. Like, how about allowing users to browse resources instead of being concerned with which server a resource happens to reside on?
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
You realize that the guide you link is not only horribly out of date (over a year IIRC since alpha11 came out) and won't work with any of the current alpha (yeah, ALPHA) releases, but that Samba 4 has it's own dNS server now, basically requiring it operate autonomously from existing infrastructure?
Yes, building/installing and then provisioning Samba 4 takes all of about 5 minutes. Now integrate it with something which was in existence before you decide to stroke your balls with Samba 4... good luck, let me know how it goes.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
An Apple/Microsoft site? What fucking planet are you on?
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
The OP stated that there were too many small glitches with the features they were trying to use, to which your response was that these glitches were imaginary and he just wasn't using it right. That sounds like something Steve Jobs would say.
You're suggesting that Samba is absolutely perfect and has nothing wrong with it at all just because people have been using it for 20 years. I doubt that. Would you like to take that logic and apply it to Windows and see where that gets us?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The real question is does AD work better than Samba4 and if so is it significant enough that the costs are lower after taking into consideration time, expertise (after some time with the technology), and license costs, etc. It may be Samba4 is easier to setup and get working than AD although there are potential bugs that you will need to spend money on to get fixed.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but successful use for decades does indicate that it works.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
As opposed to AD which has no glitches or bugs at all ... lol
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
The wiki and most other online resources indicate the one should use the "provision" command. This command is no longer available in the S4RC you must use samba-tool to accomplish the task.
sudo samba-tool domain provision --realm=new.example.com --domain=NEWDOM --dns-backend=BIND9_DLZ --adminpass=badpass --server-role='domain controller'
Unfortunately, attempting to provision on a fresh Ubuntu 12.04 install with the following additional packages:
build-essentials python-software-properties build-essential libacl1-dev python-dev libldap2-dev pkg-config gdb libgnutls-dev libblkid-dev libreadline-dev libattr1-dev openssl (please note these pre-requisite are not documented in the wiki) gives the following error:
"libkdc-policy.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
and I cant get an answer as to where to find or build this module or find such info in a web search. All in all, it has been a very frustrating experience.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems that it would almost be easier drop reverse engineering the Windows network server to allow standard Windows clients to use Samba, and instead:
Create a new Windows client network DLL which can be installed on Windows clients to be able to access resources provided by Linux servers running LDAP and friends.
Re: (Score:3)
First impression of the error: you're missing a library file.
I did a google search, and came up with this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/samba4/+bug/887537 [launchpad.net]
Maybe that will help?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
You need to install Kerberos. That is what Active Directory is, see: LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, and file/print sharing, all rolled up into a nice package. It appears the Ubuntu package doesn't include it as a dependency, which it should, so I would blame the package manager.
I agree, the docs need to be better, but Samba4 hasn't officially been released yet.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
The basic samba code has indeed been around for decades, and it's great.
Do be aware that samba4 release candidate 4 only got released on 30th October 2012 and as the announcement says "This is the first release candidate of Samba 4.0.0! This is *not* intended for production environments and is designed for testing purposes only.".
http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-announce/2012/000277.html [samba.org]
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right. It is the administration not the software. We have a couple file servers running Small Business Server and a couple that were running Samba. The SBSs required no administration. We turned them on and they just kept trucking. Our samba box would have random drop outs where it would deny access unless you restarted the file server.
We also had trouble with user group permissions not getting picked up properly. We also had a problem where the clock would get out of sync and then deny access.
It seemed like there was a new unique "Administration" necessary every couple weeks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't know what you're doing then.
I have a samba box with Win7 auth via AD working fine, and serving 118MB/s over gig-e. Never had a problem with it, and I sometimes forget which shares are Win hosted and which are hosted from the FreeNAS box (samba).
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Good for you. If you want to come setup my Samba box then be my guest. All I know is that one set of file servers works great without any administration and one has been a non-stop headache.
We have a grand total of 0 IT staff. That's possible with AD. I haven't found that to be possible with any Active Directory replacements.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Your problem isn't AD, its that grand total of zero IT staff.
Get an external IT person, have them come in and configure and manage the servers for you periodically, and call them when you need things changed instead of hacking at it yourself and you'll have a much better experience no matter which software they use.
I administer over a dozen Samba sites remotely via SSH and have no issues with it, I'd expect you can find admins to do the same if you shop around.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a difference between something possible and being a good idea...
I have seen samba networks setup with zero ongoing maintenance too...
If you don't maintain your servers, they will become more and more of a security liability as time goes on.
AD domains are terribly insecure at the best of times, find a single box in the domain thats got any vulnerability, exploit it and pull off some hashes then spray them across the network to get more boxes, eventually you own the whole domain. And if you think WSUS will ensure everything is updated, try updating a big network and then go around and thoroughly audit it (ie using something that checks for actual vulns or old file versions rather than querying the windows update apis)... You will usually find that a bunch of updates are marked as installed, when in reality they aren't... And all you need is one vulnerable box.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have 0 IT staff, I can guarantee you're using active directory incorrectly.
I have no idea what "incorrectly" means in this context. We have usernames and passwords, we have folders with different permissions, we can login over VPN from home, we can mange our computers through the SBS console, we have roaming profiles... that's what we want and it all works.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
If you grew up in an MS world and you just can't get over it, by all means try to find an Active Directory replacement. If not, brush off your Linux skills and learn how to do it right.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Our samba box would have random drop outs where it would deny access unless you restarted the file server.
You probably had a minor misconfiguration. Would have happened whichever box you had it on. What did your support company say? [....] Oh; you set up a system without a support company? You thought that "Open Source" was a magic word which meant "fixes its self without any support company" ; you thought that Red Hat stood for "nice company that fixes everything for free even if we install a clone distro" and forgot that it actually means "fixes stuff their paying customers care about".
Okay, I might be wrong in this case, but 98% of the time when asked it turns out that the people have spent thousands on Microsoft, Cisco and so on certificates. They have support contracts coming out of their ears for Oracle. Then they install an open source load balancer or database or something and suddenly the fact they saved money on the software license means they want to save even more money on the support. This is a bad mistake; everyone should look for competent support and if they can't find it then they should find a way to set it up themselves. If there's nothing, then you can probably employ some of the people who wrote the project really cheap and get a bunch of good developers in the price.
Re: (Score:3)
Support is always valuable, but when the mail box is filling up with often the same problems, you have to make a value judgment.
Sometimes it's the fact that Microsoft training is somewhat rigorous and people *tend* to apply AD settings according to a well known set of formulas. I find that a lot of serious professionals lacking AD training depend on SAMBA documentation to try to make AD run, thus creating chasms linking OpenLDAP, SAMBA, and AD structures, and they're different beasts.
Yes, it's great to have
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm guessing one of two things here.
1. You performed an epic hack.
2. You really don't know what the hell your doing.
3. I wasn't interested in pedantic product naming. And always assumed they were part of the SBS family of products. Apparently only SBS is SBS and the other SKUs are a different family of servers.
For those who are truly interested, and I can't possibly imagine why...
Domain Controller: Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008
File Servers: Microsoft Windows Server Standard Edition 2008 R2(tm)(c) for primary RAID and then we're replacing Samba boxes with Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 (tm)(c).
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
If Samba is difficult to administer, that's a problem. That makes it inferior to the competition.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, what? Have you run Samba in a business environment? I have, and I can completely understand the sentiments here: there's a lot of little stuff that goes amiss or requires seemingly excessive management.
There are a LOT of "small glitches" while using Samba 3 in any not-just-Linux environment. It has nothing to do with 'poor administration'. Over the years, I have had problems with Windows - 98, XP, 2k, 2k3,Vista, and now W7 - operating properly against a Samba host. This isn't a matter of 'improperly administered' so much as it's a "Microsoft released a patch which broke things which worked previously" problem, and it seems to be getting worse as time goes on.
To add insult to injury, Samba 3 development has basically been in 'maintenance' mode for years, with Samba 4 getting seemingly preferential treatment. There have been very few new features of functionality added to Samba 3 aside from the odd "needed to keep things working well" patch or a backport from Samba 4 by an intrepid sysadmin (or so it seems). Really, what used to seem like a very nice and mature project now feels like something on life support, with half the features present having been backported from the development branch, often without a full implementation, inconsistencies, and no/poor documentation.
As for Samba 4, (which neither you nor my post's GP seem to realize we're talking about here): it's an entirely different beast than Samba 3. The only significant thing it appears to share in common with Samba 3 is the smb.conf format and actual file/print services (which is a fairly recent change). It is still in HEAVY development. What they started out to implement was really quite awesome and interesting: Active Directory based on open source tools currently in existence. At one point, they were using BIND for DNS integration and Heimdal for the directory. Their team members made many valiant attempts and efforts in providing patches to these supporting projects.
However...
Both those things are now internal to Samba 4. That's right: the directory itself as well as a DNS server are components to Samba 4. IMO, this is the biggest mistake they've made, and waiting would've been worth it if they could've gotten BIND to work (they couldn't, due to design differences between it and Windows AD/DNS frequency, chain of authority, etc. IIRC - not without making a mess).
Integration of their own directory (based on a heimdal fork, IIRC) makes sense. But not DNS, at least as its implemented now. The DNS server is not BIND compatible and will not take a zone transfer, and doesn't even do reverse records yet (not properly, at least).
THAT SAID, Samba 4 is still not hitting a 1.0 release. Who knows if 1.0 will mean 'beta, we're polishing' or 'production ready' - but I will bet you anything that it will be lacking documentation on how the tools work and have quite a few bugs. :(
I've been a follower of Samba 4 since I was in college, and that was close to a decade ago. I don't think there's much hope of it ever being production ready, not anymore. They tried to do too much, and as a result, Samba 4 won't be all that usable in an existing Samba 3 network where DNS is also used - it just won't be possible without making a huge mess of things due to a pre-existing DNS system which won't be able to be fully compatible.
Samba 4 works "OK" at home, but only if you've got very limited needs and you're starting from scratch. It's not nearly as flexible as Samba 3 (eg. different authentication backends, for instance) and from my point of view will not be 'production ready' for many years at its current pace.
Re: (Score:3)
"That's right: the directory itself as well as a DNS server are components to Samba 4. IMO, this is the biggest mistake"
The DNS is needed for Kerberos (for Windows at least) and other Active Directory features like GPO.
"The DNS server is not BIND compatible and will not take a zone transfer, and doesn't even do reverse records yet (not properly, at least)."
What? Of the 3 DNS implementations of SAMBA4 2 of them use Bind. One is a DLZ plugin and the other is a flat file generated by samba. Both need to be inc
Re: (Score:2)
You seem like you would have enough information to really let the rest of us know something (like specific versions of servers and clients) and what exactly happened as opposed to a cryptic remark.
What for? What do you need to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to realise that Active Directory has a bunch of overlapping different features. Samba4 is a great for part of it. Puppet is great for a different part of it (the ability to configure systems - like a superset of Active Directory Group Policies) LDAP covers some other parts etc. etc. You need to be really careful with this question because it is already loaded. Essentially, if the answer is "Active Directory" you are asking the wrong question. Your overall system administration story with Linux will be much better than Windows but you need to start thinking more from the beginning since it isn't always as obvious which tool is the right tool.
Re: Puppet for config/package to Windows? (Score:2)
Re: Puppet for config/package to Windows? (Score:4, Informative)
Puppet has a server and client setup. The Puppet server process is Unix only.
MSI packages are supported. I'm not sure about group policies yet.
Not yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Samba 4 is in it's Alpha release stage and is not recommended for production. That said it's a remains to be seen thing if it will be.
It also depends a great deal on how and what you use AD for. For simple authentication you can use samba 3 + LDAP for that now.
For programs that require AD not so much with either.
Re:Not yet. (Score:5, Funny)
What a coincidence - Windows 8 just made its Alpha release too.
Re:Not yet. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless I missed something, Samba 4 is not in Alpha release anymore. It has gone through beta, and is now in release candidate stage. (rc4 currently) It is designed as a full Active Directory implementation (including DNS and LDAP)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I may have to put up a test copy then. I suspect there are few real world test cases being run, but an RC is far enough along
for me to justify spending some cycles at work on it. There are more samba 3 + LDAP setups out there than people may realise
and all of them stand to benefit from Samba 4.
Re:Not yet. (Score:5, Informative)
I've got four offices running various versions of Samba4 on ZFS, up to the latest git head pull. Some of those offices have been running alpha versions for two years without an issue, we mostly use it for roaming profiles and AD user management. Some portions don't work as well as a pure Microsoft environment may, like how many GPO setting changes appear to do nothing (like to try disabling CTRL+ALT+DEL before entering a password).
It works for roaming profiles and it works well, but managing permissions (userid mapping, etc) between SMB4 and Linux is a pain the ass. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
Several of the AD configurators don't really do anything to the Samba4 installation, like managing shares. Changing ownership and making sure things are world-readable (like a common share) is also a kludge, something that shouldn't be true in a production ready software package.
Samba3 could fool XP (Score:2, Interesting)
I've managed to get XP clients to join an NT domain using Samba as a PDC. Samba 4 wasn't an option at the time, but I don't see why AD emulation should be beyond the realms of posibility.
The biggest problems I had were the cryptic errors from the Windows boxes, not Samba.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think these days there's much "configuring and reading documentation". There's one samba-provided registry file you need to import on every Windows Vista/7/8 host before joining them to the domain, and that' sit. It pretty much works. Server-based printers w/ drivers don't work for some printers because said printer drivers are buggy and won't take anything but only certain windows server versions. If you use IPP printing, things are fine. I still keep drivers on the server and push them to clients
Nein. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You're out of date. Samba 4 (although at RC now) does Active Directory. Don't spread FUD please.
Re: (Score:2)
Because Samba 3 never claimed to do AD, and Samba 4 claims to do AD. That is why.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A simple browse through the forums quickly showed this is simply not true. Reading on how to enable Outlook integration confirmed that. Same old same old. It's alright if you have available time, a client willing to pay for the learning curve, and users comfortable with "out of mainstream" software. If you have clients like these, count yourself lucky.
Back in the day .. well June (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot discussion about Samba 4's Beta release Samba 4 Enters Beta [slashdot.org]
All-Linux network (Score:2)
The poster didn't say whether his instructor had a problem with a Windows client/Linux server setup or with a Linux network in general.
E.g., what if you just cut Win clients out of the picture? Just have straight up Linux. Would he still have a problem?
Secondly, if you did have straight Linux, what kind of software stack would you have?
How well does LDAP work when you get to the nitty gritty? Is Kerberos something you'd be using? What's the best NAS? FreeNAS? 7 or 8? Or NAS4Free? Just a Linux box running NA
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, For all Linux networks, Samba does change things. Samba 4 is backward compatible with all of OpenLDAP's and Heimdal Kerberos's clients. In a purely Linux network, Linux machines would connect to the Samba 4 Active Directory as Open Directory Clients.
Love Samba (Score:2)
Mixed results in a mixed environment (Score:5, Interesting)
We have, for many years, had a computing environment that, on the server side, is a mix of Red Hat Enterprise and Windows. Users and groups are (ostensibly) the same in both environments. The servers running Samba were in AD but were not acting as DCs.
Samba has always handled the user accounts perfectly. Groups, on the other hand, break fairly frequently - and by "break" I mean it stops realizing that group "foo" on Windows is also group "foo" on Linux. Since most of our end users are on Windows boxes, and most of the authorization on the web server (my main concern) is handled using groups, this has been a big headache for me. Fortunately we were able to convince our manager it wasn't worth the continued investment in man-hours by our Linux and Windows guys to keep debugging this group issue, and we just pulled the plug - now everyone has to use scp/sftp, and everything works well.
Admittedly this is a narrow use case I'm describing. Also I wouldn't be surprised if everything would be peachy if 100% of the AD stuff was being handled by Samba (and ONLY by Samba). But if this is a mixed environment, you should do some serious testing before making a decision.
Re:Mixed results in a mixed environment (Score:4, Informative)
NOT Recommended. (Score:3, Insightful)
Samba may be able to do some of the windows file and printer sharing... even acting as a domain controller. BUT. Trust me. It will be hell to administer. For what you pay for Windows 2012 standard... with Hyper-V, and all the roles and services you just get... I dont see how you can compete with the ease of use and administrations. In the other-hand, if you are hard core UNIX/Linux and you need to support a few windows boxen in your environment.. then this is a great fit for you. Otherwise, stay away... far away. Anything you save in dollars you will spend in time... ten times over.
Depends on what your requirements are (Score:3)
I haven't read in detail about Samba 4, and it appears that the Samba Wiki [samba.org] is down at the moment, but there is a decent description on the Fedora Project site [fedoraproject.org]. According to the Fedora site, Samba 4 includes the ability to be a domain controller and implements the Kerberos stack, but it is not clear that it provides the centralized configuration management that Active Directory does. This centralized management (Group Policy) and the ability to delegate administration (Organizational Unit based delegation) are very powerful features of Active Directory and what keep large organizations on the platform.
If what all you are looking for is a shared account database and the ability for multiple workstations to authenticate against it, Samba 4 may be just the ticket. If however you are looking for a replacement for Active Directory at an enterprise level, I doubt it is there yet.
Re: (Score:2)
It does. Install the RSAT tools on a Windows client and use to manage Group Policies on the Samba4 controller.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7887 [microsoft.com]
The HOWTOs for Samba4 all emphasize this.
Samba 4 changes everythying (Score:5, Informative)
Since 2005, The combination of OpenLDAP, Heimdal Kerberos, and Samba 3 has been a staple in the Linux Infrastructure, with other services such as FreeRadius, NFSv4, and AFS being tacked on for good measure.
Many if not most Linux based utilities support LDAP. Unlike Samba 3, which functioned as an OpenLDAP based application, Samba 4 completely replaces OpenLDAP, and Heimdal Kerberos. Consider the following. Samba 3, while far beyond what Windows NT4 was ever capable of, expanded the NT4 Domain concept far beyond it' design limiations. In the most recent era, Samba 3.5 and 3.6, created an enhanced form of NT Domain Authentication just for interoperability with Windows 7. (This is very fascinating because it uses Windows 2003 Sign and Seal with NT4 Authentication, something NT4 never could do.) So it can be be said, while Windows 7 expressly drops support for Windows NT4, Windows 7 has express support for Samba 3.
Yet the sword of Damoclese has swung over the head of Samba 3.x for a long while. Vista dropped support for NT4 Style System Policies, requiring administrators to resort to registry Trickery with Wine and third party policy tools such as NitroBit.
Samba 3 brought about a form of NT Domain that supported LDAP as a backend, could use Kerberos for Authentication both for file shares and joining the Domain. (Although only other Samba clients could utilize the Kerberos aspects of Samba 3.) Could delf out policy by OU. With help from OpenLDAP, Samba 3 could overcome the single PDC limitation, and all Samba Domain Controllers could be writable PDCs because OpenLDAP supported Multi-master Replication.
Beyond Samba, FreeRadius could use LDAP for authentication, Evolution could garner configuration information from OpenLDAP, for IMAP and SMTP settings (CalDAV Support was never added, even though there were feilds in the OpenLDAP schema for the three CalDAV based Calendar, Addressbook, and Task List.) This cooperated with eGroupware. Sudo could draw Sudoers from OpenLDAP, as could NSS. Each had their own unique Schemas.
Unlike when Windows moved from NT4 Domains too AD, the movement was simple, before, you had no Directory Service, and now, boom! you do. In the Linux world LDAP has been a reality for a long time. Many applications are built to participate in Open Directory based Domains based on OpenLDAP Schemas. What happens if the Schemas conflict definitions? How will this be resolved?"
The real world (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask yourself why?
I used to be like you when I was 20 a decade ago. Here is what I have learned. Your enterprise hates change and looks at you as a financial burden and unnecessary cost unless you work for an IT company. If they have AD why switch? If what they have works don't mess with it.
I saw this pop up last week on slashdot when Microsoft suggested business users stop using XP. Shockingly a decade ago on slashdot people would be laughing at everyone using a 11 year old platform who refuses change all based on Microsoft. Fast forward today you see folks under 35 freak out and DEMAND XP BE SUPPORTED FOREVER because changing is something you never ever do! Those over 35 got modded down saying upgrading is part of your job. The point is to put SAMBA 4 in you have to fight such people. They hate change and will cling to obsolete products as their behaviors in the last decade taught htem to lock versions with no updates and view everything as a cost center. Even a free product like Samba as such.
If it breaks who do you sue? Who do you call for support? Will you be handed a pink slip with a boot up your ass out of the door if something breaks? AD is standard, it is used by everyone else, other products like SQL Server, Sharepoint, and Exchange use it. It is part of the proprietary eco system at work and even though slashdotters breathe down Linux as the end all for everything it is not in an already established enterprise environment.
Just stick with AD. It is what you will be quizzed on and expected to know in your first job interview. If you do not know it they will find someone else who will. It is that simple.
Re: (Score:3)
Samba4 works great for small offices (Score:5, Informative)
Context? (Score:2)
This question needs some context. My first reaction was, "Hey, what about LDAP?" Then it occurred to me that the instructor was assuming a lot of MS-centric infrastructure that needs AD support. But that's just an assumption.
I've noticed a certain MS-centric viewpoint in many community college course on networking,. This probably has to do with MS giving schools a lot of resources.
Rather than looking at a replacement... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the use case.
I know too many Windows and Linux folks who try to shoehorn one way of doing things so it runs the way they want them to. This post reeks of that.
Find the best business reason to use one thing or another. I don't disqualify MS because it's not open source, or Linux because it's free. There are costs to doing everything, and usually made up outside of what infrastructure you decide on.
That said, Windows is best on the desktop because of Group Policy, its extension into things like System Center, IT Asset Management systems, reporting, workflow, automation, etc. I know it "can be done" with Linux but the process is usually smushed together and kludgy. Windows is simpler because of the software that supports it, many of them made by MS themselves.
I will stick with *nix for my backend requirements, and Windows for my front end. Until something changes drastically, I don't see much point in trying Linux on the desktop -- it's clearly not its strong suit.
Re: (Score:2)
No one was ever asking if they should use Linux on their desktop. The question was about replacing an active directory windows server with Linux/Samba.
Re: (Score:2)
Fair point... but if you're talking about having a server with Windows clients and trying to supplant AD, it's a futile exercise. It all works together really well because it's designed to. Once you lose control of being able to administer huge swaths of clients via GPO, you lose an organizational edge.
Unless you're a software firm intent on showing you can do without. But most people aren't software firms in that position.
What "Group Policy is" (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep in mind that "Group Policy" is, truly, is merely Windows Registry keys stored in the LDAP database in Active Directory. Samba 4 will store these in it's LDAP database. Something Samba 3.x+OpenLDAP Couldn't do.
Linux has no Registry, Linux approaches the Group policy concept differently by having application level Sub-Schemas that have to be imported into the tree. Linux applications then have to be configured to call on the LDAP Database instead of using it's local files. There are OpenLDAP Schemas for:
Sudoers ...and more.
Evolution
eGroupware/phpGroupware
DHCP
Samba 3 of course
Bind (Deprecated)
Posix Accounts (/etc/password, NIS and NFS related)
CUPS (Printers)
Kerberos
Posix
Puppet
urpmi (Exclusive to Mandriva)
Apache (Can store httpd cluster information)
Zimbra
When Samba 4 is released, you have to import all these OpenLDAP entries into the Samba 4 LDAP tree.
Depends on what you want to do... (Score:2)
it's an excellent replacement (Score:2)
Samba + OpenLDAP is a fine choice for AD replacement.
Let the kids have their toys (Score:2)
Let the kids have their toys, put your efforts into the man tools.
The closed source bit of Samba... (Score:4, Interesting)
Fairly obvious that Jeremy A was largely responsible for DSfW, just a shame that stuff was most likely locked up as Novell IP and off limits to Samba 4.
Not replace, but maybe work with. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think you can replace Active Directory for things like Group Policy, etc.
Strictly speaking, Group Policy and user settings management stuff is not "Active Directory". It is a layer on top of Active Directory, which was originally called IntelliMirror but now just goes by the name Group Policy. All "Active Directory" gives you is a scalable authentication layer based on DNS and Kerberos with some interesting hierarchy features, the ability to "trust" other AD organizations to varying degrees, as well as a schema-based object system that anyone can expand on. AD objects can rep
Re: (Score:2)
AD has serious problems (Score:3)
I don't think it's bad for what it does, but the inability to rollback changes or even to know what's been changed is a serious oversight. There are third party tools that fix this (Google search for active directory change control), but for a large scale environment you shouldn't have to rely on third parties to make a tool usable.
Contrast this to a UNIX based ldap server (openldap) where the entire directory can be saved and reloaded as a text file over and over again.
AD also has the tendency to bury lots of information behind properties windows that have 30 or so tabs. Even if you look at all of those you'll still miss disconnected pieces like group policies or if an AD account has an exchange account.
I don't think "replace AD with Samba" is a good idea though. If you're going to be using lots of Windows systems then you're better off managing them with the tools provided by the vendor.
Straightforward... (Score:2)
I assume the fixation with AD specifically to the point of referencing Samba 4 means Windows will be a way of life.
Once released and incorporated into something like RHEL, then I'd say Samba 4 becomes worthy of consideration. At that point in time:
-If your infrastructure is mostly Windows, stick with AD.
-If your infrastructure/clients is mostly Linux (or clients aren't going to be traditional Windows workstations either way) or you have *realistic* ambitions of this being the case, then Samba 4 will probab
Something LIKE AD for linux desktops... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't understand. AD IS LDAP. The Samba 4 AD Server runs OpenLDAP and Heimdal Kerberos.The file /etc files direct the machine to look to LDAP for configuration and policy instructions.
Maybe for quite small client counts or custom sw (Score:3)
Overall, no, it isn't even close. Samba 4 may offer the core features of AD its self, but it doesn't offer all the powerful management and Group Policy tools, system deployment facilities, etc. Some of it could probably be hacked in on top, but IMO, it's really not worth it.
I was running a Samba3 domain on an LDAP directory for years. It was OK, but always had annoying warts and problems, plus it was a pain to run. Automatic printer drive deployment was fiddly and never that reliable. Group Policy wasn't even an option.
Eventually I gave in and moved over to win2k8. As a heavy Linux user and long-time *nix sysadmin, I have to say, for running Windows networks I am NEVER going to use anything else. Sure it has its issues, but it's reliable and it has an amazing array of system management tools.
The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit alone is worth running a Win2k8 box for : just PXE boot your clients and have them auto-re-install themselves, install software and printers, change settings, add local users, install updates, and reboot almost ready to use. You can do this with a USB key and a manually copied Windows PE image, but it's fiddly and annoying.
Then there's Group Policy. Group Policy actually makes me want to use Windows. It makes me want to get rid of my Linux thin clients - despite their reliability - because with Group Policy I can just push changes out to all machines (or defined subsets) with a few simple changes in a central directory. It's seriously impressive.
About the only irritation is that so many software packages use custom installers rather than the Microsoft Installer (MSI), so it's not always easy to roll them out via Group Policy server push. Some of those that do (I'm looking at you, Adobe) don't make it easy to just download their updates whenever they come out and push them via Group Policy; you have to go and check for updates by hand. Fail.
Despite the irritations, there's just nothing like it for booting a client off the network and having it come up ready to use. Redirect the user's desktop and documents folder and you don't even need to worry about the machine breaking or having client backups; you back up the redirected folders, and if the machine breaks you just re-image it because it has no local data of any importance on it.
The sad fact is that tools like this are no fun to work on, so they're not something we're going to be seeing in Linux/BSD land in a hurry.
Re:Dumb Question is Dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Samba 4 *is* intended to be a full AD implementation. Currently it has a built in LDAP and Kerberos server set in the same daemon. That is a problem
for some, like myself, that use Samba 3 + LDAP for shared auth. When complete is *should* be a fairly complete implementation of the AD specs, all
of them. I have no idea how long this will take, or just how complete it is, but those are the design goals. All of this is a result of Microsoft releasing the
full spec due to the European Union lawsuit.
Re:Dumb Question is Dumb (Score:5, Informative)
...it has a built in LDAP and Kerberos server set in the same daemon. That is a problem...
The reason is that M$'s implementation of things like LDAP is broken. So a standard LDAP (or Kerberos) server is not going to work.
E.g., OUs that really aren't (In AD, OUs are just cosmetic). There are attributes associated with objects that break LDAP spec. etc.
Microsoft broke Kerberos just enough to prevent using a standard Kerberos server setup, but works to use std. clients against AD.
Microsoft broke DNS in the 90s. They allowed things like underscores in names which are illegal according to spec-- all standard DNS servers now allow underscores to allow interop with the broken M$ implementation. There is even a DNS RFC that comes just short of naming M$ which calls out that they butchered and abused DNS in their AD implementation-- this abuse interoperates with current DNS servers, though. so this isn't a reason for including their own DNS.
So, rather than breaking every other existing software package, or trying to maintain a bunch of patch sets, Samba just includes its own implementation of the above with breakage compatible with M$'s breakage.
Re:Dumb Question is Dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft broke DNS in the 90s. They allowed things like underscores in names which are illegal according to spec-- all standard DNS servers now allow underscores to allow interop with the broken M$ implementation. There is even a DNS RFC that comes just short of naming M$ which calls out that they butchered and abused DNS in their AD implementation-- this abuse interoperates with current DNS servers, though. so this isn't a reason for including their own DNS.
Not really correct. The DNS specification in RFC1035 from 1987 allows the use of underscores in names. This has never changed.
This is a common misconception because the use of underscores in hostnames IS prohibited and this remains true. Microsoft chose the use of underscores in thier AD implementation to remove the possibility of name-space collision with hostnames. BIND, the most popular DNS server in use only permits underscores in hostnames when an option is set to override the default.
Microsoft has broken lots of standards either because they didn't understand them or found it advantageous to ignore them, but this is NOT one of them.
Re:Misunderstand of what SAMBA actually is...... (Score:5, Informative)
I also commented above, Samba 4 *is* intended to be a full AD server implementation. It is using the documents Microsoft was forced to release
as a result of an EU lawsuit.
How complete an implementation it ends up being and how well it works will have to wait to be seen once it exits Alpha status and gets a few
beta releases under it's belt.
It's a whole new samba in the end.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure most collages and universities also turn a profit. At least the all the deans and administrators do.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Typical Instructor (Score:4, Interesting)
I've had many people complain that they have to learn the command line to use Linux and they need to understand how the network works and etc.... but I tell them to grab a book and learn. Out out the 100's of Linux servers I managed I would down grade 0 of them to Windows, from my personal experience Windows gets in the way and allows slop on my network, Linux keeps it neat and running fast, even the master Domain controller which is used for something like 1000 people to log onto the network is Linux based. Before I started the Domain controller was a Windows Server and the login time wasn't horrible, after I upgraded it to a Linux server we shaved about 1/2 second off the login times and another 20% on resource use. So my statement holds, If you don't want to use Linux for your network then you either don't understand it or you don't want to put effort in upfront.
Re:hahahahahah (Score:5, Informative)
to do which functions and to scale to what size? login authentication for 100 users in a medium sized business works very well, the medical office management company I set up with vmware and linux servers (but windows desktops) has been working very well that way for 3 years already.....
Re: (Score:3)
Fuck proprietary AD calls. LDAP is the standard to code apps with. AD has an LDAP interface by the way.
Re:hahahahahah (Score:5, Informative)
References:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/997424/active-directory-vs-openldap [stackoverflow.com]
http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-software/200507/msg00185.html [openldap.org]
http://blog.is4u.be/search?q=openldap [is4u.be]