I'm shopping for a new file server, and Microsoft's pricey and complicated licensing has got me thinking: It's just a file server... why not use a Linux server?

That leaves me wondering, how do I setup Windows-like file permissions on a Linux file server. I'm sure I could figure out a read+write directory and a read-only-by-admins directory.... but how does a Linux file server handle permissions on folders such as user directories? Is there some way that a Linux server can see or use the usernames in my Windows domain? Can I set permissions for individual users (as opposed to being limited to owner/group/user)?

When I'm visiting a website, I can't tell if it's linux or windows hosting. I would like my file server to be just as transparent. I don't want any of my users to be able to tell the difference. Is that possible?

Linux file servers use samba to communicate with windows boxes. Your questions boil down to how do you configure samba to get the results you want. That's a fairly large subject but there are many on line resources available to help you, eg:

http://www.samba.netfirms.com/

http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/samba.htm

There are also many good books out there on samba. Perhaps the easiest, depending on your needs, is one of those networked attached storage devices(NAS). I'm not that familiar with them but they generally run linux with samba under the hood and have nice front ends for configuring the system.

See also http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/ for a practical description of samba.

Linux Archive

thanks for the links!