[Samba] I've gone full circle now, let's start over

[Gaiseric Vandal]

It depends on the size of your location and the clients in question.


Assuming , when talking about mapping shares, you mean from Windows 
clients.      If you have more than 5 windows workstations, the Windows 
workgroup approach (i.e. no centralized accounts) is a pain to 
manage.      The domain approach with a domain controller is usually the 
way to go.      A Windows domain controller can be a Windows 200x Active 
Directory Domain Controller, as Samba 4 domain controller (which mimics 
a Windows 200x DC) or a Samba 3.x DC (with is more like a NT4 DC.)


I have been running Samba 3.x at my location for several years.     I am 
using an LDAP backend, and this is the same LDAP backend that is used 
for authenticating Linux workstations and other services.         If you 
have an existing LDAP infrastructure I would look at Samba 3.x     The 
big downside of Samba 3.x is that it looks like major development work 
is stopped on it.     However, from what I can tell, it is NOT easy to 
tie Samba 4 into an existing LDAP structure.








On 05/22/14 11:22, Steve Campbell wrote:
> When I started considering Samba, the main objective was to have a way 
> for our users to log into something and map the shares they required 
> based on their group (departmental) needs. As I asked more questions, 
> most recommended AD as this would allow the administrator to manage 
> these users.
>
> Now that I find I'll probably need VMs to handle the AD/DC and the 
> shares because I only have two servers to work with, I have to ask:
>
> Is there another way I can accomplish this without AD and Samba4?
>
> Managing users is not a big deal for me as I admin our mail servers, 
> and every email account gets a Linux user account. There are plenty of 
> tools to deal with account management - I use Webmin. But I'm retiring 
> in a few months, and I have to pass on the Linux responsibilities to a 
> new person, and Samba user management is all new to us here.
>
> The main problem is still how to have users log on to their machine 
> and have their drives mapped to the shares without user intervention.
>
> Clues?
>
> steve campbell