[Samba] Help: justification for Linux PDC vs Windows...

JJB onephatcat at earthlink.net
Thu Apr 10 23:55:49 GMT 2008


Lukasz Szybalski wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
> <adamtaunowilliams at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>> Now I realize I'll get tarred-n-feather for this, but...
>>
>>
>>  > > My IT department has implemented a samba PDC and now we are 
>> taking flack
>>  > > for it. Can anyone help me out with some good justifications for 
>> doing
>>  > > it this way vs the Microsoft way? Have a meeting about it in a 
>> short
>>  > > while...
>>  > > We wanted to do it because Linux is more secure and more stable. 
>> But
>>  > > there may be other good reasons and it would be good to know 
>> them. Or
>>  > > maybe it would be better to go with the Microsoft solutions?
>>  > This is almost a troll question. what is better, beer or whine ...
>>
>>    
>>> * samba is open source = support for any version of will will continue
>>>       
>>  >   as long as _you_ resp. your company are willing to support it
>>
>>  Or as long as clients will continue to operate effectively in a NT4
>>  domain;  a window with is rapidly closing, IMO.
>>
>>
>>  > * beware that samba PDC == winnt PDC, no ADS PDC yet
>>
>>  Yep - which is why I think your bosses are correct.  Deploying a *new*
>>  NT4 domain in 2008 is just nuts.  When most clients are XP or Vista and
>>  many applications have integration with AD.
>>     
>
> Could you elaborate on difference in AD vs NT4? What specific
> application that you are talking about have AD and not nt4
> integration?
>
>
> But as far as samba goes:
> 1. Free
> 2. Free upgrades
> 3. Easy to maintain
> 4. Lower maintenance costs because its deployed on linux (no $
> upgrades to os required ?)
> 5. Higher security (If that is a case)
> 6. Integration of other tools to samba pdc/linux (webmail, antispam,
> loadbalancer, linux pcs) (Which ever one applies)
> 7. Backup pdc if needed for free (no need to purchase another windows
> server license)
> 8. No need to restart server every week. (I think people that have
> windows servers know what I mean here)
>
>
> For me the biggest impact as far as going opensource/linux way is
> maintenance savings. You deploy on linux and you come back to it in 6
> months and it still runs. The only thing to worry about is power
> outage. If you go the other way then you have to baby sit your
> servers.
>
> Lucas
>
>
>
>
>   

Thanks everyone who posted so far. While we are at it, is Apple's 
OpenDirectory a rough equivalent of AD or is OpenDirectory just 
Samba/OpenLDAP compiled on OS X?

- Joel



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