Help - Transitioning from a Windows to a Linux domain.

**Windaria** · 09-10-2004

Right now I am using a windows 2000 domain controller that handles authentication and acts as my server for my home network. At any time I have at least 3-4 client PCs that I am using, but this tends to fluctuate quite a bit, and I expect it to grow sharply in the future. The client PCs must be windows-based simply because I write strategy guides for games, and use quite a few other applications, that are Windows only, as far as I know.

Anyway... this is my home setup, not some corporate network, and I just do this for security and access control (after all, when I have kids or other people over, they have no business being able to access any personal documents or financial information I may have).

That said, M$ seriously gouges people who want to run a domain controller. What idiot thought only businesses use that, I don't know. That said, it struck me that I believe a friend of mine one time mentioned he had switched out his windows domain controller with a linux one. I don't remember who it was, it was some time back, but I just figured why don't I do the same? Besides, I trust Linux to be more secure anyway, so it sounds like a good idea... and I really should start familiarizing myself with Linux anyway.

The only thing that I'm unsure of is can I do this? Am I remembering that correctly... Also how would I go about doing this, and what Linux iteration should I use? Personally, all I know is that I don't care for Red Hat ever since they went to whatever the heck new format it is that they are using now, but I am unsure beyond that. Please help. Any thoughts would help.

**bigrigdriver** · 09-11-2004

Samba is the tool to use. Google 'linux domain controller'; you'll get tons on returns.

**Windaria** · 09-11-2004

And win2K machines can log in and you can control the access to shares at a user level? From what I can tell it looks like you can get nt machines to login, but all that I read seemed to talk about share-level access, and not user-level access.

**bigrigdriver** · 09-12-2004

The samba package includes extensive documentation (htmldocs, txt, faq's, etc). In a cursory examination, it seems that using PAM authentication, user level access is possible.

**kkubasik** · 09-12-2004

The newer verisons of samba can act as a PDC effectivly and its not uncommon at all to see them in corperations starting the Linux switch.

**Windaria** · 09-14-2004

Well, what Linux version would you suggest then, for someone who is next-to-clueless when it comes to Linux, but has a reasonably firm grasp on computers? That is, someone who, back in the day, was a sr. tech at MS supporting DOS and who has, more or less, kept up since then on the MS side of things.

**bigrigdriver** · 09-14-2004

Probably any Linux distro would handle the job. What you need is the particular application to ease the setup. May I suggest Webmin? It will install on any Linux distro; several include it on their cd's, but don't install by default. Webmin has a samba setup module which might be what you need.

www.webmin.com. Don't let the .com mislead you. It's free (money-wise). The cost is entirely your time (as in the learning curve).

**Windaria** · 09-15-2004

Wonderful, thanks! As far as a distro, for my needs, from what I can tell, it seems like Debian should work out well, I hope. Thanks again.

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