What's the advantage of a SAMBA domain?

Micro420 · 11-01-2006, 10:20 AM

I am running a small office with about 15 users. I have set up a SAMBA server and it is working out well. What are the advantages if I went the SAMBA domain route? Why would there be a need to create a SAMBA domain? Yes, this is a real legitimate question.

I use Windows Server 2003 and creating a domain makes sense because you can manage a bunch of computers through AD and its group policies. However, I'm not seeing the "big picture" with a SAMBA domain. Thanks

stress_junkie · 11-01-2006, 10:24 AM

Samba v4 can integrate into a Windows AD domain so you have the same advantages as with Windows AD.

Micro420 · 11-01-2006, 12:20 PM

Whoa! That's cool! Didn't know SAMBA could be integrated with a Windows AD. I was wondering about that the other day and thought how cool it would be if it was possible! I will look into this further. Hopefully it will not be a complex process.

amitsharma_26 · 11-01-2006, 12:45 PM

You can also create domain policies within samba as well. But these are not exactly group policies; as they take all of the samba domain clients into consideration.

So if you dont mind a single domain policy for your whole of the samba domain(all client machines); you can use samba to work as a PDC with domain policies.(instead of integrating it with windows AD)

ITintuition · 11-01-2006, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Micro420

Whoa! That's cool! Didn't know SAMBA could be integrated with a Windows AD. I was wondering about that the other day and thought how cool it would be if it was possible! I will look into this further. Hopefully it will not be a complex process.

What would your primary uses for AD be? The authentication process is sometimes very time consuming but there's pretty sweet benefits possible with the right configurations such as single sign-on where you sign on once with your AD credentials and aren't required to continually login to each Linux server you're connected to.