dovecot - May 2006 - Dovecot Authentication to Windows Domain Controller

Hey Guys,

I am trying to convince my co-workers to move from Exchange 2003 to a unix
implementation of sendmai/dovecot.  They have a couple of concerns that I am
sure can be resolved.  First, is there a way for dovecot running on a linux
server to authenticate a user to a windows 2003 domain controller?  If so,
then where can I get information on how to implement and test this feature?
Also, do you guys know of any calender software that can be used with this
implementation as well?  Where users can maybe share their meetings?  Any
comments or suggestions would be grately appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
-Jagga
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Jagga Soorma wrote:
> I am trying to convince my co-workers to move from Exchange 2003 to a 
> unix implementation of sendmai/dovecot.  
Good luck on that. ;-)
> First, is there a way for dovecot 
> running on a linux server to authenticate a user to a windows 2003 
> domain controller?  
dovecot can support any PAM authentication method, and you can use PAM 
to either do NTDomain or ActiveDirectory logins.
> If so, then where can I get information on how to 
> implement and test this feature?  
Check the wiki:

	http://wiki.dovecot.org/PasswordDatabase/PAM
> Also, do you guys know of any calender 
> software that can be used with this implementation as well?  Where users 
> can maybe share their meetings?  
There isn't anything particularly good right now for 
calendaring/scheduling (though there are some projects out there in 
alpha stage).

You could check out Zimbra, which does calendaring and scheduling, as 
well as supporting lookOut (with the commercial license).  But it is a 
monolithic beast right now; you have to install a whole suite of their 
own customized RPM's, so you don't get to use dovecot.  It does store 
the messages in the database and has a wicked cool AJAX web interface, 
but I decided it wasn't worth it just yet...

John

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Boulevard
Suite H
Lanham, MD  20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5748

Jagga Soorma escribi?:
> Hey Guys,
> 
> I am trying to convince my co-workers to move from Exchange 2003 to a unix
> implementation of sendmai/dovecot.  They have a couple of concerns that 
> I am
> sure can be resolved.  First, is there a way for dovecot running on a linux
> server to authenticate a user to a windows 2003 domain controller?  If so,
You can also do it through LDAP authentication. AD users can bind to the 
DC's ldap server with their credentials.

You can configure dovecot to search dn & bind if users are within the 
whole ldap tree (auth_bind). Or use direct bind if the user dn is 
predictable (auth_bind_userdn). The latter is more efficient as you'll 
only do one ldap request per login.

Regards,
-- 
Angel Marin
http://anmar.eu.org/