hi all,

i've been charged to to setup a domain-based network and want to know if i can use a copy of redhat es instead of windows 2003.

can it be done and if so what are the pros/cons over win2003?

It is possible to use Redhat (or linux in general) as a PDC. I have converted a few office networks to linux servers. Typically I setup the machine with Samba (which will act as the Primay Domain Controller), apache (way better web server then IIS), postfix (e-mail), and a transparent SQUID proxy (for monitoring web usuage or just caching pages to save bandwidth). Linux is also very easy to setup as a firewall or to block things like AIM if you are interested in that type of thing.

While it is certainly possible to setup a Windows-type PDC with Linux using Samba, it really isn't the best choice in some situations.

Windows 2003 is a much better PDC than Samba, but that it to be expected. After all, the Samba team is trying to emulate am extremely complicated, closed-souce system. Because of that, they are a few years behind Windows in terms of PDC features.

Samba can now pretty much perfectly emulate a Windows NT4 server (NT was released in 1995). It will probably be quite a few years before it can properly replace a Windows 2003 server (or Windows 2000 for that matter). Active Directory is not supported yet (it can act as a AD BDC, but not as a AD PDC), which is the driving force behind Windows 2003/2000 servers.

Those are the cons, for the pros...to be honest I really can't think of any. Other than that it isn't Microsoft, if you are the type of person who makes decisions based on that.

I looked into replacing a Windows PDC with a Samba one, but after all my research, I really couldn't find a single advantage over using a Windows PDC (other than the advantage of cost, but in my case, we already had the Windows license, so cost was no longer a factor).

So it really depends on what you need to do. If you have a lot of users and machines, and you want Active Directory features, Samba just isn't an option at this point.

If you are running a smaller network, and are satisfied with running a NT4 type domain, then Samba might be the choice for you.

We would need more information to give accurate advice.

We have a small (40 person) shop and Samba works wonderfully for us. However, if you do need advanced features, Samba may or may not work for you. We use it for a PDC, File server, Print Server and such and it's had an uptime in terms of months, rather then our old AD server's uptime of days. So I would ask that you do some research on what you need and see if Samba can make it happen for you. I picked up The Official Samba 3 Reference Guide from Amazon and it helped GREATLY! Windows is easy to set up, but Samba is WAY more stable.

Travis Beehler

If you are looking to use active directory then use samba-TNG.
Just google for it. Only beta versions are running right now but they seem promising.