Hello, 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? Thanks, Joel
Philipoff, Andrew
2008-Apr-09 20:59 UTC
[Samba] Help: justification for Linux PDC vs Windows...
Windows Server CAL's are not required when using a Samba server, so costs are going to be lower. Apple shouts that from the highest mountains when they discuss Mac OS X Servers in a mixed environment. Andrew Philipoff Programmer Analyst Department of Medicine IT Services, UCSF Phone: 415-476-1344 medicine.ucsf.edu/domit DOM Helpdesk: 415-476-6827 -----Original Message----- From: samba-bounces+aphilipoff=medicine.ucsf.edu@lists.samba.org [mailto:samba-bounces+aphilipoff=medicine.ucsf.edu@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of JJB Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 1:41 PM To: samba@lists.samba.org Subject: [Samba] Help: justification for Linux PDC vs Windows... Hello, 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? Thanks, Joel -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
John Drescher
2008-Apr-09 21:01 UTC
[Samba] Help: justification for Linux PDC vs Windows...
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 4:40 PM, JJB <onephatcat@earthlink.net> wrote:> Hello, > > 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? >I do not have much time but here are a few off the top of my head. 1) Linux is much easier to move the PDC from one machine to a completely different / new box by just mirroring the hard drive of the old. 2) You never ever have to reboot the linux server (well unless you add new hardware) so its uptime tends to be better than a windows PDC. John
On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 13:40 -0700, JJB wrote:> Hello, > > 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 ... But let's try anyway: * samba is faster (ie. network performance) * samba deals better with load (scalability) * samba provides an additional security level by having linux accounts in place * samba is open source = support for any version of will will continue as long as _you_ resp. your company are willing to support it * beware that samba PDC == winnt PDC, no ADS PDC yet * samba let's you control/configure much more things you could ever configure in a windows PDC * all components of a samba PDC are well documented (like openldap etc.) * samba is - of course - muchmuch cheaper due to the lack of license costs just some initial thoughts ... For more technical information check the samba HP and/or one of the many comparisons you will find on the net. -- ?Udo Rader bestsolution.at EDV Systemhaus GmbH bestsolution.at -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 197 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : lists.samba.org/archive/samba/attachments/20080409/3169bc18/attachment.bin
John Drescher
2008-Apr-09 21:16 UTC
[Samba] Help: justification for Linux PDC vs Windows...
> * samba is - of course - muchmuch cheaper due to the lack of license > costs >This to me makes it more flexible and better performing. I mean i can design my network how I want and not with restrictive licenses that force me to a suboptimal configuration. John
Greg J. Zartman, P.E.> > Fact is, most of us don't have farms of domain controllers and hundredsand hundreds of users. Most of us manage small to medium sized networks that can benefit hugely by the cost savings of deploying Samba instead of Windows. I'm not talking about just costs of software licenses; but cost of hardware, sys admin staff, and down time. Yup. For small-ish networks, nt4 servers are 'good enough'. Last I checked, MS imposes an artificial limit on its servers, where a server can only serve its own subnet. Samba doesn't have this limit. So a single multi-homed samba server can do the work of several MS servers. So you don't need AD with samba as much since everything is on one server anyway whereas with MS you need multiple servers and all the management overhead that entails. I could be wrong on this; it was true the last time I ripped out a bunch of MS servers and replaced them with samba. This was some time ago.... Anyone know if it's still a limitation? -- Windows is like a canary in a coal mine, it's the first thing to die on your network. -- Windows is like a canary in a coal mine, it's the first thing to die on your network.
JJB> Yan Seiner wrote:>> Yup. For small-ish networks, nt4 servers are 'good enough'. >> >> Last I checked, MS imposes an artificial limit on its servers, where a >> server can only serve its own subnet. Samba doesn't have this limit. >> So >> a single multi-homed samba server can do the work of several MS servers. >> >> So you don't need AD with samba as much since everything is on one >> server >> anyway whereas with MS you need multiple servers and all the management >> overhead that entails. >> >> I could be wrong on this; it was true the last time I ripped out a bunch >> of MS servers and replaced them with samba. This was some time ago.... >> Anyone know if it's still a limitation? >> >> > > As I understand it, you need a WINS server for every subnet - we figured > this out after the fact, so we now have 3 servers running Samba so that > everyone can see all members of the workgroups (we are rolling out the > domain slowly - in the meanwhile, we don't want to lose functionality. > If anyone has a written proceedure for how to get this working with only > one multi-homed server (does that mean one server with 1 network card > for each subnet, or one card with 3 addresses somehow associated with > it?) please post a link or email it to me.It's been a while, so bear with me. You assign multiple IP addresses to your ethernet card: ifconfig eth0 192.168.128.1 ifconfig eth0:1 192.168.129.1 ifconfig eth0:2 192.168.130.1 and so on. You can also do this through your distro's network configuration. Then in smb.conf you tell samba to listen on those interfaces. I think that's it. You end up with one workgroup that different subnets can see. If you want different workgroups I think you can run multiple samba daemons with different interfaces set up and different workgroup names. You'd probably have to separate out all of the volatile files like *tbd, but I can't say. As long as the IP addresses are different this should not cause problems. ISTR I had to do some voodoo with wins forwarding but that may be because I had remote servers connected via VPN. Not written down in any detail but perhaps others can fill in. -- Windows is like a canary in a coal mine, it's the first thing to die on your network.