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Large Scale Deployment of Linux for File/Print Services?
sgtrock asks: "I was
approached this week by a manager of the server support group at my
company. He says he and his boss are trying to figure out what
should host our file and print services for the company (read,
replace Netware). He asked me if I thought if it would be feasible
to do on Linux servers. Now, I was more than pleasantly surprised by
the question, because as late as last fall I couldn't get this guy to
take Linux seriously for companies our size. However, recent stories
about Microsoft plus some of their actions here have really soured him
on the idea of moving to Win2k services where he doesn't have to. I
told him that in theory we could do it: LDAP authentication to our
existing NDS on the back end, Samba file service and either LPR/LPD or
CUPS based printing. The big open question mark for me is archiving.
He then asked me if I knew of anyone already doing it." I'm sure
there are shops out there that are using Linux as such. If you are,
please raise your hand! Numbers on the size of the network
and how well the system has been holding up would be appreciated.
"This is a pretty conservative company. We HATE to be first if we can avoid it. Every time we are we pay in much pain and sweat. So, I'd like to know the following: Does anyone know of or can point to success stories for this kind of application in very large environments? Mind you, I'm talking about tens of thousands of desktops, as we have 60,000 users. University stories will be looked at with skepticism by this management team. I'll read the stories, but they probably won't be given much credence by anyone else. Thanks for your time."
Our biggest issues were with printing - LPR just plain sucks. At the time, CUPS was still very new, so we used LPRng. I ended up writing a GUI front end for printer management (since printtool didn't work well, and editing printcap files by hand was unacceptable). The final "problem" was quotas - the NT admins were used to setting directory level quotas, while Linux/Unix uses partition level quotas. Simply put, we had to split /home and /shared while they were used to having just one partition. Quota management under Linux just isn't the same as NT (for better or worse), and you need to remember things like "if a user & group quota affect a directory, the MOST restrictive effects the user" (which is why you need to make two partitions).
With newer kernels, this is a more reasonable project. Linux really is "enterprise-ready" now (I hate that term). Previously, things like a journaled filesystem were missing, which was a big gripe with the NT guys (when a system goes down, it takes a long time to scan 100 GB of data!). Also, newer kernels support more than 32000 users and groups (usefulness depends on your company size).
Finally, make sure you consider backup systems, how the systems would be administered, etc. It's a big project, but manageable if your company is really interested.
If you need some fodder for the fight to help convince management that this will save a LOT of money, check out this business case. You might also be interested in this deployment plan. Infrastructures.org also has a number of useful (must read) documents. Finally, you may want some help designing the architecture, and making sure you've found any issues. Find someone who has done this before (shameless plug: US Linux Networks) and have them at least work through some fo the major points to make sure you've got everything covered - the cost for a few days of requirements, architecture, and design may save you a lot of wasted effort.