First, I'm not sure if your speaking of samba4 or just upgrading your s3
domain structure .. my comments are based on samba4 hope it helps ..
Policies: -- Group policy works with S4.. So whatever group policies you
can set in windows DC you can set on the S4 dcs..
Scalability -- 1PDC and several BDCs would be your answer. Essentially
your going to create the same infrastructure as you would with the
windows family of servers. unstead of multiple pdc's you'd use bdc's
at
in different vlans.. or RODC's but I am not sure where the RODC's are in
terms of completeness.
Backend -- OPENLDAP isn't supported as a back-end.. I believe that your
only option is to use the built-in samba4 back-end at this point..
Compatability -- there are no special steps in joining windows 7 or 2008
servers to the S4 domain..
There is an upgrade script that should pull your users and computers to
the new domain, obviously this would require extensive testing in your
environment.
On 05/20/2012 11:32 AM, Jason Voorhees wrote:> Hi people:
>
> I've been using Samba for a long time with some "basic"
features like
> Samba working as a PDC, integrated with OpenLDAP, being a print
> server, among others, for a small number of "almost controlled"
users
> (no more than 30 or 50 users).
>
> But now I'm interested to implement a Windows domain using Samba for a
> University with 6000-8000 users distributed through several VLANs,
> subnets, offices in a medium/big campus. I'd like to avoid using a
> propietary solution like Windows 2008 with ADS so I'd like to know
> some suggestions like these:
>
> Policies:
> ======> - How well can Samba manage policies for workstations?
> - Is it easy or safe to apply and/or remove policies from workstations?
> - What kind of things can I allow or deny from succeding in
> workstations using policies? For example: could I avoid users from
> changing the IP address of the workstation? Could I set a fixed
> wallpaper or internet explorer proxy settings to workstations?
>
> Scalability
> =======> In a big scenario like the previous i mentioned:
> - How many BDCs would be needed? Is it enough to have 1 PDC and severals
BDCs?
> - Is it possible to have multiple PDCs of the same domain each one
> being in a different VLAN? or, what's the right approach in terms of
> structure-architecture to implement PDCs and BDCs?
>
> Backend
> ======> Definitely I plan to use OpenLDAP as backend but, similar to the
> previous question about BDCs: how many Master/Slave OpenLDAP servers
> do you think it would be necessary? It could be 1 BDC+OpenLDAP (slave
> or master) for each office or VLAN?
>
> Compatibility:
> ==========> - I know that are some procedures to join Windows 7 to Samba
domain, I
> did this before successfully. Do you know -maybe- of another possible
> compatibility problem that you suggest I can be prepared for?
> - If after some time (weeks, months or years) I plan to replace this
> Samba based domain to Windows 2k ADS domain: is it possible to do this
> migration without problem? it isn't necessary to reinstall all the
> domain and rejoin all the workstation?
>
> Technically I can investigate how to implement each of these features
> (policies, BDCs, openldap, etc...) but before taking a decision like
> this i would like to have some suggestions of people that have done
> similar implementations before. This help it would be excellent for
> me, I hope some one can help.
>
> Thanks