Zimbra/OpenLDAP/Samba Integration

[Todd E Thomas]

All, I'm writing to include you on an effort to keep a good thing going. I'm not sure if you're aware of this but Zimbra (www.zimbra.com) and Samba integrate quite well together.

There are hoards of admins who believe in and rely heavily on this solution:
http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=UNIX_and_Windows_Accounts_in_Zimbra_LDAP_and_Zimbra_Admin_UI

I've been planning to move my clients to this solution for a few reasons:
  1) Zimbra is an MS-Exchange killer
  2) For File and Print Samba is the only thing worth talking about.
  3) Add MySQL, Apache, vsFTPd, and a few other apps and you have a total replacement for MS-SBS on the linux platform.
  4) Zimbra allows the integration of Samba into it's web Admin UI via 'Zimlets'.
  5) The Zimbra Admin UI (ajax) is so easy to use that small business owners can manage their day-to-day operations without incurring a bill from integrators like myself. But, this is where we are now...

In the future it appears Samba4 will be more AD than Active Directory is, and as such, the above solution may be more difficult/impossible to implement. 

Presently, Zimbra comes with it's own ldap implementation and Samba 3 can use that as a backend. It's a modified version of OpenLDAP (2.3.43) with a zimbra.schema file included in slapd.conf. Who knows what kinds of changes Zimbra's made to it...

It appears that Samba4 will need to modify the ldap backend (creating a directory instance) in the future. This could potentially break the above solution.

I'd rather present numbers to base this need on but there are none that I'm aware of. The Zimbra forums are littered with questions about the above solution so it appears to be quite popular.

The real power in MS-SBS is the seamless integration of File/Print Sharing & Email (for the cost). The same applies to the Zimbra/Samba solution; if Samba and Zimbra were 2 halves of the same whole I believe this could be an opportunity for a great leap forward in open source and in keeping costs down for small business owners. 

My hopes are to engage the Zimbra/Samba teams in order to keep this in mind while moving forward. I understand that integrating 2 packages is lower on the priority list than refining them individually but the thought of using Samba 3 till the bitter end is not as attractive as growing with Samba4.

If you would like to see it in action I have a test server that you could use for reference. The solution is fully automated for consistency and takes 45 minutes to reload if something bad happens to it. Please let me know if I can help in any way. I'm not part of the samba-technical mailing list so you would have to cc me on this if interested.

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Thanks in advance for your time,

Todd E Thomas
C: 515.778.6913
"It's a frail music knits the world together."
-Robert Dana