"One password for all"

[Akop Pogosian]

Is there away to get windows and unix users to use the same password
database for authentication? So far, I have found two Solutions:

1. Use pam_ntdom module on the unix hosts, all password/user data
lives on a windows NT PDC. This is not a good solution for us at all
because this is too much hassle just to get a few windows clients
going (our network is mostly unix based).

2. Use Novel NDS with their account management software (a bunch of
windows utilities and unix pam modules that make all clients, windows
and unix, authenticate from the same database in NDS).

3(?) iPlanet directory server can "synchronize" the passwords with a
windows NT PDC and I don't know how well that works.

Is there a solution, probably samba based that makes uses a single
password database or does password synchronization completely
transparently, that doesn't involve Windows based PDCs and preferably
other proprietary software? Right now, I am thinking of using Samba
2.2.x with a wrapper "passwd" script that would take a password from
user and update the unix and windows password data but that just
sounds ugly, but certainly doable (right now our "passwd" command is
already a wrapper script because we need to change the unix password
and the secure RPC password simultaneously, those who use NIS+ would
know what I am talking about ..)


-akop