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Linux Workstations in a Windows Domain?
gsperling asks: "As Windows licensing costs are gradually increasing, and options for those licenses are decreasing, I am forced to investigate Windows alternatives. I am trying to begin rolling out Linux as an alternative desktop solution to my enterprise. I am an IT Manager for a company of approximately 65 users. We are incorporating a second company into ours in the next six months, and that 65 number will grow to well over 150. This is a solution that I need to start working on TODAY. We currently have a Windows 2000 Server. It is primarily used as a file and printer sharing server, along with maintaining all of the user accounts domain-wide. I would like to know how it is possible to get a Linux Workstation to authenticate against the user database in our Windows 2000 Server. I have exhaustively Google'd, read thousands of mailing list archives, and have still come up short. After I receive my results, I plan on publishing a whitepaper on how this is done, of course giving credit where credit is due." For those of you using Linux in the Enterprise, how have you managed to get Windows to play nice with any Linux boxen in your domain?
Ironically enough, I saw an ad for just such a Microsoft product yesterday right here on Slashdot on the top banner!
I currently use a mixture of rsync in a cron deamon and winbind from samba.org. The two allow syncing remote users accounts on workstations and authentication against the domain for the following services: ssh, ftp, telnet, pop3, kdm. Others can be added if they support pam. One that I have not gotten to work as of yet is cvs but I'm working on it.
>But if you save 200 bucks on the OS, but then spend 10 hours trying to
>make it work with a windows domain what good has it done you.
Presumably he's rolling out more then one machine. The prep work will be amortized over a few dozen PCs.
BTW, how long did it take to develop a standardized WinXP image for your shop?