As of the past few months my colleague and I have perfected (and continue to do so) server conifgurations and installations using Slackware 10.1 into any environment. In all of our environments, provided the client is willing, we switch all major domain functionality to our Samba-based servers; including: Domain Logons, Roaming Profiles, and File/Print capabilities. There's only one BIG hurdle left.

Group Policy with Active Directory. Some of our clients want this so bad their skin itches, and while we have failed to find an alternative outside of Microsoft, we keep trying. Has anyone any success or insight on how we may prevent our clients from having to by a full blown MS Server strictly to restrict security to domain users at a global level?

I know that from a Windows XP machine I could connect as the Domain Admin to each remote station and manage their GPO's 1 to 1, but that would grow tedious and tiresome over the course of a network with more than 10 machines.

Are their any packages available that would dish out a GPO, made on a Windows machine but stored on the Samba server, as a user logs on? I know it's probably far fetched because the creation of a GPO creates a registry-like folder into the SYSVOL\Policies directory but I'm brainstorming all I can. Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I searched the samba-tng site, but all I've found is that it is in the works. If you've got a machine to download the cvs version and give it a crack, you might get closer to what your looking for.