D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] Linux serving Windows machines...

 

On 02/02/2009 14:45, Grant Sewell wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking to install a server at work that will serve Windows
> machines.  I'm in two minds about the best way to approach this.
>
> Essentially all they *need* is a central point for emails and file
> storage (with security in mind too, though), but they would *like* to
> have a hotdesk capability - so any user info is stored on the server
> and the server acts as a central point of authentication.
>
> They have Windows XP and Windows Vista Business machines.
>
> In VirtualBox on my Ubuntu laptop I installed a virtual Windows XP and
> a virtual Debian Stable.  On the virtual Debian I installed Samba and
> configured it to be a Windows PDC.  After a little tweaking on the XP
> front (modifying a single registry entry), the virtual XP now
> authenticates against Samba and loads up a roaming profile nicely (and
> creates one if no existing profile exists).
>
> Vista Business, however, doesn't.  I've tweaked the same registry entry
> on Vista that made XP work, but to no avail.
>
> So, I'm now in three minds as to how to proceed.
>
> One side of me is saying "stick to Samba as PDC with Dovecot and other
> things and figure out why Vista won't load roaming profiles from Samba".
>
> Another side of me is saying "look for a Linux distro that sorts this
> out for you".
>
> The final side of me says "they don't actually *need* roaming profiles
> or hotdesking, so don't worry about the PDC thing at all".
>
> Now, ideally I'd like to find option 2, and if that doesn't exist,
> option 1 (mainly because I like a challenge and don't like quitting
> when something becomes awkward).
>
> So, does anyone know of a distro that allows you to quickly set up as
> a central point of authentication for Windows machines (I don't mind if
> it's not a "Window Domain Controller" - as long as it lets Windows
> machines auth against it)?
>
> If not, does anyone have experience getting Vista machines to join,
> auth against and load roaming profiles from a Samba PDC?
>
> Cheers all.
> Grant. :)
>
>    
SME Server from www.contribs.org will do the job as a combined 
e-mail/file server with domain authentication (and with a bit of 
tweaking I managed to get an Ubuntu box to authenticate to it).  It also 
supports roaming profiles and it has an easy(ish) to use web interface.  
It works fine with XP but I'm not sure about Vista, I presume that it 
requires encrypted passwords (I vaguely remember an old version of SME 
Server not supporting encrypted passwords only plaintext passwords but 
now with 7.4 it works fine with XP without any changes to XP).

Doing a search to see if it'll work on SME Server I came across this...

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,38239.0.html

and this...

http://www.builderau.com.au/blogs/codemonkeybusiness/viewblogpost.htm?p=339270746

By the sounds of things, the second link might actually be what you need 
to do to the Vista boxes to get them to work with Debian & Samba.

HTH

Rob


-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html