[Samba] LDAP/SAMBA wide area network advice sought

[G. Armour Van Horn]

I have a network made up of six small LANs, spread out over a span of
about 50 miles. Each LAN is a private Class C network with address
192.168.x.0/24, where "x" is 0, 4, 13, 49, 60, and 77. The six networks
are connected with IpSec tunnels through SmoothWall firewalls, with
every network connected at least back to 192.168.0.0. There is a Windows
NT 4/SP6 PDC in each location.

As the networks have grown I find that we are currently serving more
users than we are licensed for, and I'd rather move to an Open Source
solution rather than pay Microsoft a bunch of money.

I've read a lot of messages on this list over the last few months, and
I've read the Samba/LDAP How-to at idealx.org. (I read the whole thing
late last year, and just now downloaded the update from last week.)

I want to use LDAP as the authentication with the master LDAP server
being in the home network (192.168.0.0) so that I don't have to drive
from one end of the island to the other just to add a user. Whatever I
do now, I'm going to want it to last with minimal changes for at least a
couple of years. I would like to start with the home server, then roll
it out to one office at a time over the next few weeks.

The clients in the offices are mostly Windows 98 with a smattering of
95, 2000 Pro, and XP Home. All users use their common names as their
user names ("John Smith" rather than jsmith).

Any advice on things to watch for, versions to prefer or avoid, or any
other hints in starting this would be welcome.

Van Van Horn
Whidbey Island, Washington
(Yes, I'm in Microsoft country)

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