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Microsoft to Stop Releasing Services for Unix

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the end-of-the-road dept.

lilrowdy18 writes "According to a recent article, Microsoft will stop releasing any new versions of Services for Unix. SFU 3.5 will continue to be supported until 2011 and will have extended support until 2014. From what the article hints at, Microsoft wants Unix interoperability integrated into the OS. Microsoft says that this integration couldn't be done with past architectures."

3 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. The full story by mparaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    The eWeek article is just a summary. The full story is here.

  2. Re:Integrated by HairyCanary · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have a gaggle of Solaris boxes that authenticate to LDAP (which AD is) and I do not see any appreciable delay due to the username lookups. And yes, our LDAP directory has thousands upon thousands of users.

  3. Re:Integrated by Dolda2000 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I don't know what Unix system you use, but on my GNU/Linux system (which uses the same APIs), based on GNU libc, the get*ent APIs are implemented using nameswitch modules, which can do lookups in LDAP, NIS, /etc/passwd, /etc/passwd.db, a MySQL database, or anything else. And indeed, it will be on the complexity order of whatever that algorithm chooses -- it's not a flat search.

    I will agree that there are a lot of things that should be done with the Unix "directory services", but not that which you describe. The greatest problem is that Unix still uses numeric UIDs, whereas it should be using symbolic UIDs (such as Kerberos principles).