Active Directory Comes To Linux With Samba 4

Da Massive writes in with another possible answer to a recent Ask Slashdot about FOSS replacements for Microsoft AD server. "Enterprise networks now have an alternative choice to Microsoft Active Directory (AD) servers, with the open source Samba project aiming for feature parity with the forthcoming release of version 4, according to Canberra-based Samba developer Andrew Bartlett. Speaking at this year's linux.conf.au Linux and open source conference in Hobart, Bartlett said Samba 4 is aiming to be a replacement for AD by providing a free software implementation of Microsoft's custom protocols. Because AD is 'far more than LDAP and Kerberos,' Bartlett said, Samba 4 is not only about developing with Microsoft's customization of those protocols, it is also about moving the project beyond just providing an NT 4 compatible domain manager."

Comments

AD licensing

[ani23]

Can someone tell me how AD is licensed? I thought it was a part of server 2003 and once you buy that there should be no additional costs right? Our Sys Admin is planning to install ad for our office (we used never had AD before) and I am trying to figure out what if any the advantages of getting AD will be.

Re:AD licensing

[Darkk]

Exactly. You need CALs for stuff like:

AD
Exchange
Terminal Server
etc.

It adds up pretty quickly.

It's really a nightmare for IT Depts as they have to keep track of the CALs and ensure they have enough licenses to cover the number of users.

Re:AD licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

A careful reading of the TOS says that it is licensed via user or device CALs based on authenticated users..

They actually have an example if you use AD as back end authentication on a web site you have to buy a CAL for ever user, or magic uber-CALs for the web server.

Really, it is just a tax. A MS shop typically has to pay:
  - For a OEM license on windows
  - For a volume license upgrade on windows
  - For a device or user CAL for the windows machine/user
  - For a windows server license (per VM!)
  - For exchange server (and a windows server license)
  - Per user exchange CALs (yay!)
  - Office CALs for outlook

It used to be a CAL came along with NT4 so you didn't need a separate one, but that is not the case anymore. MS said their customers wanted the simpler model of paying more for the same thing.

Of course, CALs and VLK upgrades are locked to specific versions so you have to keep buying them again and again to keep the additional rights.

The only happy area is that the CALs apply to all servers at once, so if you have a thousand users and a thousand servers you only need a thousand CALs.

No software checks this, but these are the terms.

It is really quite insane, but maximizes MS's profits.

See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/client-licensing.aspx
And keep in mind that MS thinks performing an authentication against AD is accessing the server.

Re:AD licensing

[gallwapa]

No...no...no

There are "per device" or "per user" licenses.
If you have 5000 computers but 40,000 users, it is probably cheaper to buy device licenses...so you can do that.

In addition, each server DOES require a server license (which is different than a CAL).

Windows is licensed like so

Standard edition license includes 1 phys server + 1 VM (on the same server)
Enterprise includes 1 phys server + 4 VM (again on the same server)
Datacenter includes unlimited server licenses of any type

Users with enterprise agreements or software assurance don't have to repurchase - they're covered under their contract.

Re:AD licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, it is just a tax. A MS shop typically has to pay:
    - For a OEM license on windows
    - For a volume license upgrade on windows
    - For a device or user CAL for the windows machine/user
    - For a windows server license (per VM!)
    - For exchange server (and a windows server license)
    - Per user exchange CALs (yay!)
    - Office CALs for outlook

In comparison, a Linux shop typically has to pay:
  - Nothing for a volume license for Ubuntu Linux,
  - Nothing for license upgrades,
  - Nothing for the Linux client machine/user,
  - Nothing for a Linux server license (also nothing per VM),
  - Nothing for Openchange or Citadel on a server
  - Nothing per Openchange or Citadel user
  - Nothing for copies of Thunderbird or Evolution or Akonadi or Kontact

That is a lot of zeroes ... fortunately there is no "1" at the beginning though.

Re:AD licensing

[Jezza]

Well really they probably pay for "service".

Now some think this is a total waste of money and the whole point of Linux is you don't pay for anything. While it's true you can do this, if you're multi-million wonga business is relying on your IT that may not be too smart.

But buying "service" isn't some nasty con, you're actually getting something. Also you can shop around for it, and even switch suppliers.

Now the "free" aspect of Linux really helps you (as a business) as all your "computer wonks" can have a copy (for free) and take it home, use it outside the office (so they learn the product inside out). It does work out cheaper than Microsoft. The product evolves quicker, but you're not forced on some insane upgrade cycle.

You can get lots of certified hardware (which is important) and you're not alone (lots of other businesses have done the same).

Business get very twitchy when Linux advocates talk about "free" and the reason is they want to know: "Who's accountable if this stops working". A word of advice if you're trying to get your employer to consider Linux, keep the talk about "free" to a minimum (even "cheap" has negative connotations) instead talk about:

Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Competition in the market for Linux Support
No vendor lock-in
Hardware support from all major suppliers
Plenty of success stories

Oh and don't forget Sun make great Linux kit (not just Solaris)

Re:AD licensing

[symbolset]

SCO is dead. They'll convert to liquidation any day now. At least one would hope so. Nobody knows how long that zombie has to shamble.

there's no such thing as no lawsuit exposure.

That is true enough but to accept that as a premise is to refuse to do business. There is some middle ground where businesses can still operate in where the risk is acceptible. Limiting your exposure by avoiding licensing agreements that include the right to sue you if you overdeploy seems wise, and licensing agreements that include the right to audit you more so. Especially when there are options available that include terms like "use all you want for free".

(i'd like to see documented example of it)

Meet Ernie Ball. But wait... that wasn't Microsoft... that was their representatives, the Business Software Alliance! Same same. Evil by proxy is still evil.

Re:AD licensing

[symbolset]

Look, you seem like the average unbiased poster so I'm going to give you a few tips even though I'm going to be modded off topic.

If you're going to defend Microsoft or one of their products on /., you need to observe a few simple rules:

Don't ask for proof of Microsoft malfeasance. You'll just get proof, and that doesn't serve your goal. Read the series of Halloween documents for an introduction to how much we know. It's scary.

Don't ask questions you don't know the answer to. That's good guidance for lawyers, too. You'll get answers you don't want.

Don't ask about someone else's experience. Their experience isn't going to help your cause, and you'll get replies from the least helpful people.

Do brag features, but do it with some understanding of the features. Don't just list the marketing babble. Don't brag more than three features at a time because it's then obvious you're typing them from a list. Do brag features that seem important to the parent poster.

If you must employ "anecdotes are not proof" be prepared for a swarm of people who confirm the anecdote. Nearly a billion people use MS software. Given enough experience, every failure mode is common. Every anecdote is common here and you would be surprised how selection bias draws people with shared anecdotes to slashdot just in time to skew the replies.

If it's allowed in your contract, do be specific: What platform worked well on Vista, how much RAM did you have? What video card? If you must avoid vendor bias, split the vendors by market share and let the astroturfers brag up proportionate systems - if they work. And if they don't work, leave it alone.

Slashdot has a grand bullshit detector, so don't lie. If you lie, the lie is not just going to be modded down - the responses to the lie are going to be modded up and be the only thing that people see, so the lie does more damage than silence would.

There are more rules, but this should help quite a bit for now.

Re:AD licensing

[betacha]

I had the pleasure of formatting our Windows 2003 server this summer and completely replacing it with an Ubuntu Samba OpenLDAP Domain server using this tutorial... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=640760 The server has been working flawlessly at our school since September! We ran out of CAL's and our school is expanding very quickly. It didn't make sense to purchase more and continue paying the micro$oft tax..

Re:AD licensing

[bbbaldie]

Hmmm...Obviously the teachings of KARL MARX figure prominently in your school's curricula... ;-)

This is good for industry, what about end user?

[plasmacutter]

My last tussle with samba was yet another try with ubuntu on this old macbook.

Samba refused to accept proper config messages through gnome's graphical tools, I had to go in and edit the config manually, and samba did not respond properly to the config.

Why not just create a front end for samba and distribute it with the server and client software rather than depend on distributors?

Jumping the Gun

[TechForensics]

According to TFA FOSS AD is not here yet by a long shot, in early alpha, many missing features. Summary is *terrible* in suggesting non-M$ AD is already here.

Re:Jumping the Gun

[Darkk]

One thing I find it interesting in the article is that Microsoft been working with Samba developers to provide them the inner workings of AD. Hell, even Samba developers discovered a bug about random passwords in AD and told Microsoft about it.

AD in it's present form is still closed source project so I find it interesting Microsoft team is willing to provide them some of the secrets knowing that eventually it'll take away some of their profits like they'll miss it anyway.

So what exactly the direction is Microsoft taking?

Re:Jumping the Gun

[b4dc0d3r]

I'm just guessing here, but there was something about interoperability in, what was it, oh, every monopoly-related judgment they ever lost. Otherwise they wouldn't be helping.

Re:Jumping the Gun

[shutdown -p now]

Ever since the EU antitrust/monopoly judgement and fines, MS has significantly increased the emphasis on open standards. It's still NIH syndrome more often than note, but at least the results are now documented, and usually come with a no-patent-enforcing pledge ("Open Specification Promise" - this covers e.g. OOXML and older Office formats, XPS, Silverlight, and so on). Also, I recall that EU specifically named SMB/CIFS & AD as something that should be opened up, and Samba as the beneficiary.

Whether it's just a coincidence or one followed from another is up for you to judge.

Wow... /.'s contextual ad for this page is fitting

[Doug52392]

"A new year... A new hope?" "Let us know your predictions for 2009".

And, right on par with my hope of seeing Half-Life 2 Episode 3 in "early 2009", my hope of seeing a fully working, easy to set up and maintain, "it just works" Active Directory server for Linux this year has diminished due to the fact that this same exact story was posted here over 3 years ago. (or on Digg)

Re:About Time...

[Z00L00K]

Actually - the AD support in Samba is a bit of old news, since that has been promoted before.

But it's still good news, especially since lately the configuration of Microsoft's softwares and platforms has started to get incredibly complex and very hard to penetrate - as well as configure in a secure way.

Re:About Time...

[rmallico]

headache of AD? uh.. backing up? are you serious? there are command line tools, 3rd part tools as well that handle backing up of AD as well as full forest recovery (and even restoring a single attribute for one use to ALL users in minutes... google is your friend..

Re:Finally..an alternative

[cencithomas]

If you're calling an imperfect alternative to insanity "fixed"...

...why, you must be a Windows 7 developer. ;)

Re:About Time...

[retyurecvb]

He has Samba confused with Sambo. Somebody(same person?) made a post just like this a couple of days ago.

Re:Finally..an alternative

[symbolset]

What's wrong with Micosoft's licensing model? You pay either per server or per seat. If you license some servers per server, and some per seat their monitoring software tells you how often you need to "true up", and if their software fails to do its math correctly they get to sue you and seize all your computers. That makes a lot more sense than Linux or BSD's licensing model where no matter how many clients or servers you have you don't have to pay. That's just anarchy.

Re:About Time...

[Architect_sasyr]

Whether you agree with it or not, Linux has a very small market share in the two places it counts: gaming and the office. It's "big news" here when we find a government organisation or a school going with a Linux installation, and until it stops being so we can never consider Linux *as good* as MS or OS X, purely because of usage base. This functionality is an excellent step in the right direction for the office software, because we (as sysadmin's) can build a server that silently integrates with all the XP/Vista machines on a network, without "telling" anybody about it. After a few months of having a stable linux server in place, we can start pushing stable Linux onto the less-than-important PC's - like the receptionist (who can/should be trained) or the marketing department. Slowly (but surely) bringing across all the machines possible we can to Linux. Having AD functionality is definitely the first step. Getting a decent-free Exchange-replacement will be the next (and I mean free in the same way that Debian is free, unrestricted as much as possible) in the chain. Simply put, any OSS supporter needs to make some compromises to get their software into the enterprise. People grow up on Windows, or on OS X (as a rule it is one or the other) not (necessarly) on Linux, so we need to ease them in.

Oh and Linux has its own Directory functionality, it's OpenLDAP. It's just not necessarily as easy to maintain as Open/Active Directory.

My $0.02 AU.

Re:just 4 more years and it'll be stable.

[stephenpeters]

mark my words, it'll have bugs which will result in 1000's of "RTFM n00b" or "it's ms's protocol that sucks" responses.

Just as Slashdot is full of trolls and OT comments help forums often have people posting unhelpful comments. Just ignore them. Life is too short for arguing with idiots.

I find the Samba help forums are generally excellent if you take the time to ask a sensible question instead of just posting the first problem that comes up. Often the task of formulating a sensible question solves a problem without actually having to ask on the forums at all. I also generally find my query has already been answered in the forum and all I need to do is search.

The Samba documentation is an excellent resource and generally answers most of the questions you may have. Try starting with John Terpstra's Samba 3 by example which is a practical guide to implementing Samba 3. I don't know if John is working on a Samba 4 update to the book, but there is a WIKI, HowTO and a FAQ available. If you are risk averse you may not want to use Samba 4 in production just yet :)

Not very realistic

[Krokant]

It is not very comforting to read the following statement:

"My Russian connection has had Samba 4 running in production since last June and has discovered a few missing features. They also discovered that machines would stop working after 28 days which was something to do with password expiry."

"Something to do with...". This is in every AD 101 book (machine accounts, password renewal, ... thing). I would at least expect that the Samba developers have experience in installing, running and maintaining a "realistic" Active Directory environment (read: more than 1000 client machines) before delving into the real messy details. I am not sure I even want to know how they are going to handle disaster recovery (one of the fun parts of AD, rest assured).

Honestly, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to run a FOSS equivalent Active Directory. After having spent months in setting up a full mixed Windows/Linux environment (OpenLDAP, Kerberos, Samba, the works), I can say that setting up AD is a breeze: for me, it is a prime example where Microsoft took existing technologies (LDAP, DNS, Kerberos) and actually turned it into something useful without the typically associated configuration nightmares. And it works very stable indeed.

And please, cost is not a reason for not going with Active Directory. The cost of a single Windows Server license is absolutely peanuts compared to what *you* cost your employer. The operational costs are what matter in long term and I am pretty confident that Microsoft's AD will do much better than that for the years to come.

Re:Not very realistic

[jonwil]

Clearly you havent priced the full costs of a full set of servers (and addons) for Exchange. AD etc. Not to mention all the client licenses you need (CALs or whatever they are).

I am sure there are quite a lot of people who would LOVE to be able to replace a windows server machine with a linux machine running Samba + OpenChange + whatever else

Re:Not very realistic

[spazimodo]

The costs for AD/Exchange, etc. pale in comparison to the administrative salary costs associated with supporting an IT infrastructure and the lost productivity costs of down time.

I've found Samba in a Domain environment to be kind of flaky, and while it's useful for accessing the file system on a Linux server (though I prefer scp) there's no way I would look at replacing any Windows file server that had an SLA with a Samba server. The licensing costs for a Windows server (especially virtualized) are negligible.

On the other hand, there's still no great solution for something similar to AD on Linux. NIS+ is old and sucks. Going through the whole LDAP rigmarole only gets you part of the way and requires a hell of a lot of upkeep depending on the server. Winbind against AD isn't bad though again it's flaky and requires way too much work to setup. I supposed there's the tried and true method of rsync-ing passwd, group and shadow files around.

The combo of AD and Group Policy is pretty killer, It would be really nice to see something similar for Linux, or at the very least improved AD integration would be awesome.

Re:Not very realistic

[DaMattster]

"My Russian connection has had Samba 4 running in production since last June and has discovered a few missing features. They also discovered that machines would stop working after 28 days which was something to do with password expiry."

Samba 4 is not really production ready yet. That is why it is labeled as an alpha version. Those using it in production, do so at their own risk. That said, I use it in a home network and it does run beautifully. However, I would be leery of using it in a business environment just yet.

Something to do with...". This is in every AD 101 book (machine accounts, password renewal, ... thing). I would at least expect that the Samba developers have experience in installing, running and maintaining a "realistic" Active Directory environment (read: more than 1000 client machines) before delving into the real messy details. I am not sure I even want to know how they are going to handle disaster recovery (one of the fun parts of AD, rest assured).

Disaster recovery will be far easier on a Samba 4 DC because access to AD itself will be far less obscured and convuluded. A simple raw LDAP call could restore the entire database at the linux command line. I have seen countless problems restoring AD after a DC failure. I created a mock scenario with a Samba 4 DC wherein the entire database was wiped. I simply used Samba's own LDB toolset and had it up and running again in seconds.

And please, cost is not a reason for not going with Active Directory. The cost of a single Windows Server license is absolutely peanuts compared to what *you* cost your employer. The operational costs are what matter in long term and I am pretty confident that Microsoft's AD will do much better than that for the years to come.

You're missing the point. It isn't about cost at all. The point of having an open source replacement for AD is to make it easier for software developers to take advantage of the largely undocumented protocols. This is designed to facilitate interoperability. Even Microsoft, from the light of the anti-trust lawsuit it lost, extended an olive branch to the Samba team to assist in providing documentation. Plus, the work that Samba does stands to benefit Microsoft as well because they might be able to see where the Samba team has had some really good ideas and legally incorporate them into mainstream AD. And, before you express such confidence, I would try using Samba 4 myself. Some parts of the code are very mature and work well.

Re:About Time...

[Kjella]

Whether you agree with it or not, Linux has a very small market share in the two places it counts: gaming and the office.

Honestly? Gaming does not count. There was a nice market breakdown I saw not that long ago from AMD, breaking it down into laptop/desktop/server and low-end/mainstream/enthusiast and the gaming segments are honestly not that large. Replacing every Windows/MS Office with a Linux/OpenOffice solution would be 1000x greater than turning LAN parties into LUGs. Nor is it easy fruit - a game requires a lot of software infrastructure, it's got limited actuality (Linux support two years after is a big meh) and is full of bleeding edge performance optimizations. Just to take that college drop-out article we had recently - the school could have said "MS Office or OpenOffice". The DSL installation disc could have said "For Linux do steps X instead". Lots of things in that article was her fault but it's quite clear that Linux could be a lot more supported in ways that would matter a lot more to the masses that a few FPS junkies.

Re:About Time...

[HangingChad]

It's "big news" here when we find a government organisation or a school going with a Linux installation...

We're not a big office but we run on Linux. Primary application servers and most of the desktops. So far it hasn't been any big news outside and not a big deal inside. It was a quiet transition, no user upheaval. The best part is we (the IT department) don't have to spend part of our day handling the crisis/virus/trojan/black screen crisis of the moment. We actually have time to document, plan upgrades, and spend time on development instead of serving the Redmond machine. The stress level comes way down.

You don't realize how much time you spend servicing Microsoft until you get away from them. Not just servicing the machines but the whole ecosystem. It's so complex, you need so many supporting services to keep it running right that the Windows admins I've seen are in a constant state of stress. And I think they like it, even though they tend to complain about how busy they are. Maybe it's job security. Don't know and honestly don't care.

All I know is I can go to a partner integration meeting today knowing everything is working fine and, in the absence of hardware failure or massive internet outage, will stay working. That there won't be a stack of trouble tickets in the queue or bill for some piece of software that does...something...that we need because MS didn't include it in the base server package.

Re:About Time...

[kimvette]

It is every bit as racist as niggardly is; as in "Microsoft behaves niggardly with its protocols while at the same time preaches interoperability."

That legitimate words "sound kinda like" racist slurs does not mean the common words are racist. On the other hand, we have just been trolled.

Re:About Time...

[walt-sjc]

Nice anecdote, but all that says is that the IT people in your company don't have a clue. Once upon a time, IT people were just as clueless about Windows / PC's. It's sad really - people call themselves professionals and then behave like that, refusing to educate themselves (If you are not CONSTANTLY educating yourself in IT, you will very very quickly become a dinosaur.)

Re:About Time...

[DrgnDancer]

But gaming is a weird animal. Many gamers (not all, maybe not even most, but many) are influential in other people's tech decisions. Whether it be the kids who his parent's assume "knows about computers" because he spends lots of time on one and can spout jargon he read on game sites, the programmer or sys admin who games as a hobby, or the "Tech Site" writers who's primary measure of performance is game FPS; lots of gamers have some level of influence on various numbers of people's technical decisions.

On top of that, even many people who don't game take an attitude of "Well, if it'll play that game, it will certainly be able to handle my $trivaltask". Gamers may be a small part of the market, but they are a much bigger part of marketing.

Re:About Time...

[bored_engineer]

And was re-offered his position after many people including Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, spoke harshly of mayor Williams "acceptance" of Howard's resignation. Too bad that it went as far as it did, though. Ignorance always has a cost.

Re:About Time...

[hairyfeet]

Reminds me of a story one of my former teachers told. He was working as a consultant for this decently large corporation. When taking stock of their computers he noticed an ancient NT server was sitting in the server closet doing their email and basic file serving. He went to the PHB and was told "I don't care what you change but do NOT touch that NT server! We had lots of problems until a IT guy we hired a few years back fixed it. It has never failed since and I do NOT want you messing with it!".

Of course being an IT nerd that instantly made him want to see what this "Miracle worker" had done. So one weekend while everyone was gone he plugged a monitor in to see what his magic recipe was. What he found was Red Hat 4 running with a text file sitting in \ with READ ME IMPORTANT. So of course he did. It said "The stupid boss thinks this is an NT server. Keep your mouth shut and everything will be fine. Dave". He of course choked on his coffee laughing, upgraded the RAM(which the PHB authorized) and soon after left the company. He said "it was too damned much like Dilbert."