Ask Slashdot: Is Samba4 a Viable Alternative To Active Directory?

First time accepted submitter BluPhenix316 writes "I'm currently in school for Network Administration. I was discussing Linux with my instructor and he said the problem he has with Linux is he doesn't know of a good alternative to Active Directory. I did some research and from what I've read Samba4 seems very promising. What are your thoughts?"

Comments

No

[im_thatoneguy]

We finally switched out our last NAS that was running Samba. Too many small glitches. Not worth the hassle.

Re:No

[Hylandr]

Poor administration is not the software / OS fault.

Re:No

[Revotron]

Because clearly, they're not holding it right.

Re:No

[Hylandr]

Samba has been around literally for decades and has seen constant reliable use.

You're suggestion that the software is new and poorly designed is invalid.

There are good admins and bad admins. If software that has been successfully deployed for multitudes of years has been a problem then bad admins are far more likely to blame.

- Dan.

Re:No

[localman57]

Is it fair, to say, then, that Samba4 and AD are both good choices for people with strong admin background, but perhaps AD is a beter choice for someone who, for instance, administers the server in addition to other business tasks? Not everybody has the time to become a good admin. They tell their boss that, but the boss also doesn't have funding to go and hire one.

Re:No

[Revotron]

Software being around for decades doesn't magically cure all the bugs.

The OP stated that there were too many small glitches with the features they were trying to use, to which your response was that these glitches were imaginary and he just wasn't using it right. That sounds like something Steve Jobs would say.

You're suggesting that Samba is absolutely perfect and has nothing wrong with it at all just because people have been using it for 20 years. I doubt that. Would you like to take that logic and apply it to Windows and see where that gets us?

Re:No

[im_thatoneguy]

You're right. It is the administration not the software. We have a couple file servers running Small Business Server and a couple that were running Samba. The SBSs required no administration. We turned them on and they just kept trucking. Our samba box would have random drop outs where it would deny access unless you restarted the file server.

We also had trouble with user group permissions not getting picked up properly. We also had a problem where the clock would get out of sync and then deny access.

It seemed like there was a new unique "Administration" necessary every couple weeks.

Re:No

[Mike Buddha]

If Samba is difficult to administer, that's a problem. That makes it inferior to the competition.

Re:No

[Peachy]

The basic samba code has indeed been around for decades, and it's great.

Do be aware that samba4 release candidate 4 only got released on 30th October 2012 and as the announcement says "This is the first release candidate of Samba 4.0.0! This is *not* intended for production environments and is designed for testing purposes only.".

http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-announce/2012/000277.html

Re:No

[im_thatoneguy]

Good for you. If you want to come setup my Samba box then be my guest. All I know is that one set of file servers works great without any administration and one has been a non-stop headache.

We have a grand total of 0 IT staff. That's possible with AD. I haven't found that to be possible with any Active Directory replacements.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. When it involves Linux or OSS, it's always the admin's fault. When it's a proprietary solution, it's bad software. You must be new here, get with it.

Re:No

[rtfa-troll]

Our samba box would have random drop outs where it would deny access unless you restarted the file server.

You probably had a minor misconfiguration. Would have happened whichever box you had it on. What did your support company say? [....] Oh; you set up a system without a support company? You thought that "Open Source" was a magic word which meant "fixes its self without any support company" ; you thought that Red Hat stood for "nice company that fixes everything for free even if we install a clone distro" and forgot that it actually means "fixes stuff their paying customers care about".

Okay, I might be wrong in this case, but 98% of the time when asked it turns out that the people have spent thousands on Microsoft, Cisco and so on certificates. They have support contracts coming out of their ears for Oracle. Then they install an open source load balancer or database or something and suddenly the fact they saved money on the software license means they want to save even more money on the support. This is a bad mistake; everyone should look for competent support and if they can't find it then they should find a way to set it up themselves. If there's nothing, then you can probably employ some of the people who wrote the project really cheap and get a bunch of good developers in the price.

Re:No

[sjames]

No, but successful use for decades does indicate that it works.

Re:No

[jythie]

Yeah, I never understood the whole 'tools that require more training to use are better!'. If two tools do similar jobs in the same use case, but one can be administered by someone who isn't a dedicated professional, and the other one requires a specialist, then within that use case, the easier to use tool is better. Additional complexity without additional benefit is not superior.

Re:No

[ozmanjusri]

Is it fair, to say, then, that Samba4 and AD are both good choices for people with strong admin background, but perhaps AD is a beter choice for someone who, for instance, administers the server in addition to other business tasks?

Not really.

If you want to admin Windows, then admin Windows, but don't pretend there's anything particularly challenging about setting up and managing Samba4 on Linux. Just step through one of the many guides. e.g: http://praxis.edoceo.com/howto/samba4

Slashdot's an Apple/Microsoft site now, so most of the comments here will be FUD. That shouldn't deter anyone with an interest from trying Samba4. It's simple enough that even a MSCE shouldn't have a problem.

Re:No

[DigiShaman]

Certified SBS guy here.

Why would you be running multiple SBS boxes? You do realize that each SBS server is its own Forrest/Domain, right? You can't just join these boxes to the same domain without breaking some serious functionality. That's because each SBS box *must* hold all the FSMO roles. About the only time you can temporarily break an SBS box is when performing a migration to a new SBS box. You can join a standard server as a secondary DC, but again, you can not have two or more SBS servers in the same Forest!

I'm guessing one of two things here.
1. You performed an epic hack.
2. You really don't know what the hell your doing.

Re:No

[kestasjk]

Don't you get it? It has been used for 20 years. What are you complaining about?

Re:No

[Jane Q. Public]

Not to mention that since Linux has no direct analogue to a "Domain Controller", searching for a substitute for Active Directory on Linux is kind of like searching for BBQ ribs at the local ice cream parlor.

If you grew up in an MS world and you just can't get over it, by all means try to find an Active Directory replacement. If not, brush off your Linux skills and learn how to do it right.

Re:No

[Rutulian]

You need to install Kerberos. That is what Active Directory is, see: LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, and file/print sharing, all rolled up into a nice package. It appears the Ubuntu package doesn't include it as a dependency, which it should, so I would blame the package manager.

I agree, the docs need to be better, but Samba4 hasn't officially been released yet.

Re:No

[CAIMLAS]

Sorry, what? Have you run Samba in a business environment? I have, and I can completely understand the sentiments here: there's a lot of little stuff that goes amiss or requires seemingly excessive management.

There are a LOT of "small glitches" while using Samba 3 in any not-just-Linux environment. It has nothing to do with 'poor administration'. Over the years, I have had problems with Windows - 98, XP, 2k, 2k3,Vista, and now W7 - operating properly against a Samba host. This isn't a matter of 'improperly administered' so much as it's a "Microsoft released a patch which broke things which worked previously" problem, and it seems to be getting worse as time goes on.

To add insult to injury, Samba 3 development has basically been in 'maintenance' mode for years, with Samba 4 getting seemingly preferential treatment. There have been very few new features of functionality added to Samba 3 aside from the odd "needed to keep things working well" patch or a backport from Samba 4 by an intrepid sysadmin (or so it seems). Really, what used to seem like a very nice and mature project now feels like something on life support, with half the features present having been backported from the development branch, often without a full implementation, inconsistencies, and no/poor documentation.

As for Samba 4, (which neither you nor my post's GP seem to realize we're talking about here): it's an entirely different beast than Samba 3. The only significant thing it appears to share in common with Samba 3 is the smb.conf format and actual file/print services (which is a fairly recent change). It is still in HEAVY development. What they started out to implement was really quite awesome and interesting: Active Directory based on open source tools currently in existence. At one point, they were using BIND for DNS integration and Heimdal for the directory. Their team members made many valiant attempts and efforts in providing patches to these supporting projects.

However...

Both those things are now internal to Samba 4. That's right: the directory itself as well as a DNS server are components to Samba 4. IMO, this is the biggest mistake they've made, and waiting would've been worth it if they could've gotten BIND to work (they couldn't, due to design differences between it and Windows AD/DNS frequency, chain of authority, etc. IIRC - not without making a mess).

Integration of their own directory (based on a heimdal fork, IIRC) makes sense. But not DNS, at least as its implemented now. The DNS server is not BIND compatible and will not take a zone transfer, and doesn't even do reverse records yet (not properly, at least).

THAT SAID, Samba 4 is still not hitting a 1.0 release. Who knows if 1.0 will mean 'beta, we're polishing' or 'production ready' - but I will bet you anything that it will be lacking documentation on how the tools work and have quite a few bugs. :(

I've been a follower of Samba 4 since I was in college, and that was close to a decade ago. I don't think there's much hope of it ever being production ready, not anymore. They tried to do too much, and as a result, Samba 4 won't be all that usable in an existing Samba 3 network where DNS is also used - it just won't be possible without making a huge mess of things due to a pre-existing DNS system which won't be able to be fully compatible.

Samba 4 works "OK" at home, but only if you've got very limited needs and you're starting from scratch. It's not nearly as flexible as Samba 3 (eg. different authentication backends, for instance) and from my point of view will not be 'production ready' for many years at its current pace.

Re:No

[CAIMLAS]

You realize that the guide you link is not only horribly out of date (over a year IIRC since alpha11 came out) and won't work with any of the current alpha (yeah, ALPHA) releases, but that Samba 4 has it's own dNS server now, basically requiring it operate autonomously from existing infrastructure?

Yes, building/installing and then provisioning Samba 4 takes all of about 5 minutes. Now integrate it with something which was in existence before you decide to stroke your balls with Samba 4... good luck, let me know how it goes.

What for? What do you need to do with it?

[rtfa-troll]

It's important to realise that Active Directory has a bunch of overlapping different features. Samba4 is a great for part of it. Puppet is great for a different part of it (the ability to configure systems - like a superset of Active Directory Group Policies) LDAP covers some other parts etc. etc. You need to be really careful with this question because it is already loaded. Essentially, if the answer is "Active Directory" you are asking the wrong question. Your overall system administration story with Linux will be much better than Windows but you need to start thinking more from the beginning since it isn't always as obvious which tool is the right tool.

Not yet.

[phoenix_V]

Samba 4 is in it's Alpha release stage and is not recommended for production. That said it's a remains to be seen thing if it will be.
It also depends a great deal on how and what you use AD for. For simple authentication you can use samba 3 + LDAP for that now.
For programs that require AD not so much with either.

Re:Not yet.

[sprior]

What a coincidence - Windows 8 just made its Alpha release too.

Re:Not yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got four offices running various versions of Samba4 on ZFS, up to the latest git head pull. Some of those offices have been running alpha versions for two years without an issue, we mostly use it for roaming profiles and AD user management. Some portions don't work as well as a pure Microsoft environment may, like how many GPO setting changes appear to do nothing (like to try disabling CTRL+ALT+DEL before entering a password).

It works for roaming profiles and it works well, but managing permissions (userid mapping, etc) between SMB4 and Linux is a pain the ass. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

Several of the AD configurators don't really do anything to the Samba4 installation, like managing shares. Changing ownership and making sure things are world-readable (like a common share) is also a kludge, something that shouldn't be true in a production ready software package.

Re:Not yet.

[jmintha]

Unless I missed something, Samba 4 is not in Alpha release anymore. It has gone through beta, and is now in release candidate stage. (rc4 currently) It is designed as a full Active Directory implementation (including DNS and LDAP)

Re:Dumb Question is Dumb

[phoenix_V]

Samba 4 *is* intended to be a full AD implementation. Currently it has a built in LDAP and Kerberos server set in the same daemon. That is a problem
for some, like myself, that use Samba 3 + LDAP for shared auth. When complete is *should* be a fairly complete implementation of the AD specs, all
of them. I have no idea how long this will take, or just how complete it is, but those are the design goals. All of this is a result of Microsoft releasing the
full spec due to the European Union lawsuit.

Re:Misunderstand of what SAMBA actually is......

[phoenix_V]

I also commented above, Samba 4 *is* intended to be a full AD server implementation. It is using the documents Microsoft was forced to release
as a result of an EU lawsuit.

How complete an implementation it ends up being and how well it works will have to wait to be seen once it exits Alpha status and gets a few
beta releases under it's belt.

It's a whole new samba in the end.

Nein.

[doubledown00]

It works for small environments. But as you start getting above 50 people AD is the way to go for two reasons: 1) Less admin overhead time. Like it or not, AD "just works" unless you really snork it up; and 2) AD credentials integrate with more stuff and it's not tenable to have to maintain different user databases for each one. Sooner or later an enterprise will want exchange.,,,,,,,and spam filtering......and internet proxies etc. There are a multitude of products out there that will integrate with AD. To get the same with Linux / Samba (if it can be done at all) will require cobbling together services and solutions that will complicate your life. The bottom line: I went through my Linux zealotry phase too. Then I got a life and couldn't spend hours on end reading docs and fiddling with services and config files. Towards that end AD just simplifies user admin and frees you up to deal with other stuff. Linux has its place in the enterprise, but it ain't as an AD replacement.

Back in the day .. well June

[OzPeter]

Slashdot discussion about Samba 4's Beta release Samba 4 Enters Beta

Mixed results in a mixed environment

[93 Escort Wagon]

We have, for many years, had a computing environment that, on the server side, is a mix of Red Hat Enterprise and Windows. Users and groups are (ostensibly) the same in both environments. The servers running Samba were in AD but were not acting as DCs.

Samba has always handled the user accounts perfectly. Groups, on the other hand, break fairly frequently - and by "break" I mean it stops realizing that group "foo" on Windows is also group "foo" on Linux. Since most of our end users are on Windows boxes, and most of the authorization on the web server (my main concern) is handled using groups, this has been a big headache for me. Fortunately we were able to convince our manager it wasn't worth the continued investment in man-hours by our Linux and Windows guys to keep debugging this group issue, and we just pulled the plug - now everyone has to use scp/sftp, and everything works well.

Admittedly this is a narrow use case I'm describing. Also I wouldn't be surprised if everything would be peachy if 100% of the AD stuff was being handled by Samba (and ONLY by Samba). But if this is a mixed environment, you should do some serious testing before making a decision.

Re:Mixed results in a mixed environment

[ruir]

Back here we are also handling the file servers, users and groups in a +10 thousand user infra-strutucture, and things work pretty well.

Samba 4 changes everythying

[Zombie Ryushu]

Since 2005, The combination of OpenLDAP, Heimdal Kerberos, and Samba 3 has been a staple in the Linux Infrastructure, with other services such as FreeRadius, NFSv4, and AFS being tacked on for good measure.
Many if not most Linux based utilities support LDAP. Unlike Samba 3, which functioned as an OpenLDAP based application, Samba 4 completely replaces OpenLDAP, and Heimdal Kerberos. Consider the following. Samba 3, while far beyond what Windows NT4 was ever capable of, expanded the NT4 Domain concept far beyond it' design limiations. In the most recent era, Samba 3.5 and 3.6, created an enhanced form of NT Domain Authentication just for interoperability with Windows 7. (This is very fascinating because it uses Windows 2003 Sign and Seal with NT4 Authentication, something NT4 never could do.) So it can be be said, while Windows 7 expressly drops support for Windows NT4, Windows 7 has express support for Samba 3.

Yet the sword of Damoclese has swung over the head of Samba 3.x for a long while. Vista dropped support for NT4 Style System Policies, requiring administrators to resort to registry Trickery with Wine and third party policy tools such as NitroBit.

Samba 3 brought about a form of NT Domain that supported LDAP as a backend, could use Kerberos for Authentication both for file shares and joining the Domain. (Although only other Samba clients could utilize the Kerberos aspects of Samba 3.) Could delf out policy by OU. With help from OpenLDAP, Samba 3 could overcome the single PDC limitation, and all Samba Domain Controllers could be writable PDCs because OpenLDAP supported Multi-master Replication.

Beyond Samba, FreeRadius could use LDAP for authentication, Evolution could garner configuration information from OpenLDAP, for IMAP and SMTP settings (CalDAV Support was never added, even though there were feilds in the OpenLDAP schema for the three CalDAV based Calendar, Addressbook, and Task List.) This cooperated with eGroupware. Sudo could draw Sudoers from OpenLDAP, as could NSS. Each had their own unique Schemas.

Unlike when Windows moved from NT4 Domains too AD, the movement was simple, before, you had no Directory Service, and now, boom! you do. In the Linux world LDAP has been a reality for a long time. Many applications are built to participate in Open Directory based Domains based on OpenLDAP Schemas. What happens if the Schemas conflict definitions? How will this be resolved?"

The real world

[Billly Gates]

Ask yourself why?

I used to be like you when I was 20 a decade ago. Here is what I have learned. Your enterprise hates change and looks at you as a financial burden and unnecessary cost unless you work for an IT company. If they have AD why switch? If what they have works don't mess with it.

I saw this pop up last week on slashdot when Microsoft suggested business users stop using XP. Shockingly a decade ago on slashdot people would be laughing at everyone using a 11 year old platform who refuses change all based on Microsoft. Fast forward today you see folks under 35 freak out and DEMAND XP BE SUPPORTED FOREVER because changing is something you never ever do! Those over 35 got modded down saying upgrading is part of your job. The point is to put SAMBA 4 in you have to fight such people. They hate change and will cling to obsolete products as their behaviors in the last decade taught htem to lock versions with no updates and view everything as a cost center. Even a free product like Samba as such.

If it breaks who do you sue? Who do you call for support? Will you be handed a pink slip with a boot up your ass out of the door if something breaks? AD is standard, it is used by everyone else, other products like SQL Server, Sharepoint, and Exchange use it. It is part of the proprietary eco system at work and even though slashdotters breathe down Linux as the end all for everything it is not in an already established enterprise environment.

Just stick with AD. It is what you will be quizzed on and expected to know in your first job interview. If you do not know it they will find someone else who will. It is that simple.

Samba4 works great for small offices

[fang0654]

So far I've set up several small offices using Samba4 as a drop in replacement for Active Directory. Here is what I've found it does well: Windows Authentication, AD DNS, Group Policy, Easy scripting (python tools and libraries). What it doesn't do well yet: Replicating AD with other servers. I haven't had much experience using subdomains, etc, mainly because I haven't been able to get it to replicate. But for a small office, it works fine.

Rather than looking at a replacement...

[HerculesMO]

Look at the use case.

I know too many Windows and Linux folks who try to shoehorn one way of doing things so it runs the way they want them to. This post reeks of that.

Find the best business reason to use one thing or another. I don't disqualify MS because it's not open source, or Linux because it's free. There are costs to doing everything, and usually made up outside of what infrastructure you decide on.

That said, Windows is best on the desktop because of Group Policy, its extension into things like System Center, IT Asset Management systems, reporting, workflow, automation, etc. I know it "can be done" with Linux but the process is usually smushed together and kludgy. Windows is simpler because of the software that supports it, many of them made by MS themselves.

I will stick with *nix for my backend requirements, and Windows for my front end. Until something changes drastically, I don't see much point in trying Linux on the desktop -- it's clearly not its strong suit.

What "Group Policy is"

[Zombie Ryushu]

Keep in mind that "Group Policy" is, truly, is merely Windows Registry keys stored in the LDAP database in Active Directory. Samba 4 will store these in it's LDAP database. Something Samba 3.x+OpenLDAP Couldn't do.

Linux has no Registry, Linux approaches the Group policy concept differently by having application level Sub-Schemas that have to be imported into the tree. Linux applications then have to be configured to call on the LDAP Database instead of using it's local files. There are OpenLDAP Schemas for:

Sudoers
Evolution
eGroupware/phpGroupware
DHCP
Samba 3 of course
Bind (Deprecated)
Posix Accounts (/etc/password, NIS and NFS related)
CUPS (Printers)
Kerberos
Posix
Puppet
urpmi (Exclusive to Mandriva)
Apache (Can store httpd cluster information)
Zimbra ...and more.

When Samba 4 is released, you have to import all these OpenLDAP entries into the Samba 4 LDAP tree.

Re:Dumb Question is Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

...it has a built in LDAP and Kerberos server set in the same daemon. That is a problem...

The reason is that M$'s implementation of things like LDAP is broken. So a standard LDAP (or Kerberos) server is not going to work.

E.g., OUs that really aren't (In AD, OUs are just cosmetic). There are attributes associated with objects that break LDAP spec. etc.

Microsoft broke Kerberos just enough to prevent using a standard Kerberos server setup, but works to use std. clients against AD.

Microsoft broke DNS in the 90s. They allowed things like underscores in names which are illegal according to spec-- all standard DNS servers now allow underscores to allow interop with the broken M$ implementation. There is even a DNS RFC that comes just short of naming M$ which calls out that they butchered and abused DNS in their AD implementation-- this abuse interoperates with current DNS servers, though. so this isn't a reason for including their own DNS.

So, rather than breaking every other existing software package, or trying to maintain a bunch of patch sets, Samba just includes its own implementation of the above with breakage compatible with M$'s breakage.

Re:hahahahahah

[rubycodez]

to do which functions and to scale to what size? login authentication for 100 users in a medium sized business works very well, the medical office management company I set up with vmware and linux servers (but windows desktops) has been working very well that way for 3 years already.....

Re:hahahahahah

[ls671]

References:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/997424/active-directory-vs-openldap

http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-software/200507/msg00185.html

http://blog.is4u.be/search?q=openldap

Re:Dumb Question is Dumb

[kevmeister]

Microsoft broke DNS in the 90s. They allowed things like underscores in names which are illegal according to spec-- all standard DNS servers now allow underscores to allow interop with the broken M$ implementation. There is even a DNS RFC that comes just short of naming M$ which calls out that they butchered and abused DNS in their AD implementation-- this abuse interoperates with current DNS servers, though. so this isn't a reason for including their own DNS.

Not really correct. The DNS specification in RFC1035 from 1987 allows the use of underscores in names. This has never changed.

This is a common misconception because the use of underscores in hostnames IS prohibited and this remains true. Microsoft chose the use of underscores in thier AD implementation to remove the possibility of name-space collision with hostnames. BIND, the most popular DNS server in use only permits underscores in hostnames when an option is set to override the default.

Microsoft has broken lots of standards either because they didn't understand them or found it advantageous to ignore them, but this is NOT one of them.

Linux-based shares

[Compaqt]

Well, OK, granted for personal machines.

But you should at least be able to browse the available servers, right? What I see is the community will continue to put out buggy Windows interop software because M$ can't just hand over the AD source.

Anyway, like I said in another place in the discussion, the Linux community seems to have went about this wrong.

It would have been better to come up with a networking addon for Windows clients to allow them to easily browse and connect to resources provided by Linux servers in a hierarchical domain arrangement (basically, Domain Name System). So: ibm.com, fl.ibm.com, miami.fl.ibm.com, files1.miami.ibm.com, etc.

Auth handed by OpenLDAP and Kerberos. Remote login by RADIUS.

Some of that stuff would need some polishing around the edges plus integration, but again, writing your own Windows client DLL should seem to be much easier than divining and decoding messages passed around an AD network.

Also: it would have been nice to really think outside the box. Like, how about allowing users to browse resources instead of being concerned with which server a resource happens to reside on?