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Windows to Linux Migration in the Enterprise?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-mission-critical-move dept.

youngerpants asks: "There is a lot of talk at the moment about migrating applications from WIN32 to Linux. This certainly helps move the OSS movement along, however, the true test of Linux is in the enterprise. Whereas we can move applications, how can the enterprise itself (such as Active Directory to Open LDAP, Exchange Server to Sendmail and NTFS to Samba) be moved. Have Slashdot readers used any applications or followed any strategies to migrate their enterprise? How would you tackle an obviously risky migration?"

2 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Advice from someone who has done it. by Noksagt · · Score: 5, Informative
    I have migrated to FreeBSD/Linux backed servers. The first key is to do it incrementally--migrate piece-by-piece.

    (such as Active Directory to Open LDAP,
    LDAP is so useful, that you might as well start here. Remember that LDAP is a multipurpose directory. If you want to replace AD authentication and a windows PDC, IDEALX has written some nice perl scripts and a tutorial on how to do this with OpenLDAP and Samba.

    Exchange Server to Sendmail

    If you want to replace Exchange Server, use Openexchange. If you want to replace only your MTA, consider using postfix. On the server end, this isn't a ton of work. But you will likely have to change the way clients are connecting to your server & also what they can do with it. Sendmail/postfix will probably not be enough for you...

    and NTFS to Samba)
    NTFS is a local file system. Samba is an open source SMB server/client. Big difference. See IDEALX for good Samba deployment.
  2. Re:Wrong examples by Undertaker43017 · · Score: 4, Informative

    nssldap, pamldap and MS Services for Unix...

    Nssldap will have to be recompiled for schema mapping, since AD doesn't follow a standard LDAP schema. Last I checked FC2 and FC3 already had compiled nssldap this way, so no recompile was necessary.

    MS Services for Unix is needed to modify the AD schema and for a couple of added screens in the admin tools for AD, to allow Unix attributes to be added.

    If you want to be able to change passwords from *nix, you will need to setup SSL, since password changes can only occur over SSL in AD.

    Just google on "AD nssldap". I have had my office running this way for almost 4 years, with no problems.