How Build a Lnux server!
 

Hello All.
I have 4 Windows Server and wanna migration to the Linux server,I'm a Linux user and use Debian at Home,can i use Debian as a server?

In windows i have some service like Active directory,File server and DHCP and Etc,can i implement they in Linux?
Some people say me Linux not have feature like active directory.

Thanks.
regards.

hello,

Yes you can use Deb as a server, also there is some active directory software for linux

but all of this is out of my knowledge as I don't use Debian.

Maybe someone with Debian knowledge will get you more information.

Well, Active Directory is a Microsoft specific thing. However with Samba you can accomplish something like that, especially if you combine it with an LDAP, and you will need a DNS server. I have done this a while ago on Debian with Samba, OpenLDAP and bind9. Samba is actually a file server that implements the MSFT protocols. For DHCP, I used isc-dhcp-server. Most of the MSFT servers can be replaced by Linux servers, but you need to do research to make sure that you know what you are doing. This kind of operation takes a lot of preparation, because it will have a huge impact on your network. Once you are finished, it works great!

That will be 4 Windows servers and not a Windows NT 4 server, won't it?

Please, please, please do not write 'wanna'. It is not English, and it makes you sound like a spoilt brat, which is presumably both unhelpful and wrong, in this case. "I want to..." or, in this case

To the question "Is Debian suitable for use as a server?", the answer is yes, and given that you already use Debian, it would be an obvious choice (no point in recommending, eg, Centos if you already use and are happy with Debian, unless you specifically want, or need, to use something different for this project). To the question "Do you know how to configure and administrate a Debian server", I have to admit that I do not know, but I can't really see why not, if you are prepared to read a few tutorials and follow best practices.

Well, it is possible to implement services like AD, fileserving, DHCP (and possibly etc....didn't know Windows had a /etc). But you need to observe that this is not the same as saying that you can come up with a box that is an easy drop-in replacement for some Windows box with an already-configured set of services with minimal disruption to your network. That would have been a very different question.

AD is problematic. Or, not. Vaguely, whether something like AD has easy, a drop-in replacement depends on whether you have a very simple, rather basic, AD install that you want to replace, or whether you have used much of the more complex functionality of the more recent AD releases. In any case, have a look at this, which might simplify things. Or use Samba.

Samba also satisfies the requirement for fileserving to non-Linux boxes (actually, you didn't say that you were file serving to non-Linux boxes, so that is a presumption, but no other interpretation seems likely). Using Samba to replace AD is more problematic, as it depends on how recent your Samba is, how complex your AD configuration is, and how much time you can spend getting Samba to 'emulate' AD. For some people this will be just what they want, for others it will be a step too far and a solution like 389 Directory will be the only sensible one (...or, don't touch it, of course...).

DHCP is comparatively easy: one solution has already been suggested, but you could use DNSMasq and get DHCP and DNS caching in one program that is relatively easy to configure. If you are using the 'zeroconf/mdns/avahi/bonjour-style' protocols for anything serious, then this might not be quite such a good idea, I don't know.

Also note that you seem to have suggested that you currently have four windows servers and that your intention is to replace these with a single Linux server. whether this is sensible depends on a number of things that we don't know (eg, are you, for example, intending to replace old Windows servers with Linux runnning on newer, faster, hardware? Is the number of users, and hence the demand for network bandwidth and disk bandwidth, high or low? Is the possible high number of users (local or remote) a factor in that you cannot reasonably go around to each of the client machines and reconfigure them, when this change occurs?)

Thanks.
but can i implement AD in Linux with samba?

---------- Post added 11-14-11 at 06:08 PM ----------

Thanks.
but can i implement AD in Linux with samba?

I hoped to have made that clear; it is possible to implement some of the features of AD, but not all, particularly not all of the more recent features.

If you start from a blank sheet of paper, and you ask 'Can something which is vaguely similar to AD be implemented?' the answer is yes. If the question is 'Can it be used to do exactly the same thing as some, already implemented, AD installation', then the answer is 'It depends'. And not only is it 'It depends', it is also 'It depends on stuff that we don't know.'

PS: Your thread title asks 'How Build a Lnux server!' and you do not seem to be interested in that, as far as can be told.

No, you cannot implement AD on linux. You can create something similar. AD is Microsoft specific! What are your requirements for a similar implementation of AD based on Samba. That's what we need to know before we can answer your question. And if you already have AD, why do you want to change it? Changing it has a huge impact on all AD enabled services in your network. Some services will not work with a linux implementation.

So I wouldn't change it, if there is no need for it.