Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 and Samba on Centos/SME 7.3
 

I have the latest SME 7.x ISO image on a CD and Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 (MOAP) 3-user to install on a Dell Poweredge 830 (3.2GHz/1GB/140GB/DLT) server and Windows XP Pro workstations.

I thought it would work pretty much the way we were running Quickbooks before, but unlike Quickbooks, which has an individual internal Quickbooks-defined profile for each Quickbooks-user, MOAP uses the Windows security model and takes its security levels from Windows' inbuilt User profiles, plus an added access level which is set internally per Windows User inside MOAP.

I wasn't expecting this level of security/complication for Samba to have to deal with. If it were simply file serving from an HDD which it made 'look like' any other drive on the network, a la QuickBooks, then OK, but I don't know how Samba will cope with individual domain level security profiles/AD integration, rather than simple workgroup security and file sharing.

There seems to be a real lack of how-to's regarding MPAP in a mult-user invironment, let alone using a Centos Linux server with a SAMBA hosted data file and Windows User level security.

Has anyone done this already and if so, can you give me any tips or guidance to avoid any problems?

Any help at all would be much appreciated.

to be frank with ya rupert, i'd say you're out of luck! SAMBA can handle windows user profiles, but the extra level of access in MOAP may be a problem. SAMBA tends to be a little bit behind the curve compared to say Server 2003 CIFS, which would handle what you want easily. Do you really have to go with MOAP? If so, might be easier to move to Server 2003. Promise I'm not from MS, but why kill yourself trying to bring the proverbial mountain to mohammed?:twocents:

best of luck either way!:)

I would still have preferred to install SME Server instead of SBS.
 

Yup, I am sorry to say it but I had come to that conclusion too. And yes, I do have to use MOAP. Before we bought it, I had not realised that MOAP was so integrated with M$ security, but it figures, I guess. I've now installed a fresh copy of SBS (2003 Server) onto a nice little Dell PE 830 and the installation and set-up went a treat, until it came to MOAP recognizing Server 2003 Domain Users. That eventually required an email to M$ support (free for the first 90 days), and a nice young lady from the US who VOIP'd me back within a couple of hours (who immediately fixed the problem) before it worked. Don't get me wrong -- I'm no big fan of M$ either, but this was excellent support (credit where its due); in fact probably one of the best support interventions I have ever had. All in all, I am now a happy camper. But I would still have preferred to install SME Server instead of SBS. It was just not to be.

ah well, we all know that linux is up against it. excellent for file and print, webserver, mailserver, but when it comes to MS software, it can be a pain to integrate linux based servers.

I have a similar issue in a school, where they use MS based software for the admin package, and we need to use a 2003 server for the web element, because this proprietary software only runs on MS SQL Server, with MS ODBC, and MS IIS. However, we are using linux for two big file servers, and all client machines! so i consider it a win for linux...

better luck next time!