Topic: Methods for making a fileserver

Wanted some thoughts on this if you would.

We need a fileserver here at work. Pretty simple. However, I have a few concerns.

Windows XP Pro will only allow 10 connections. Not good since there are probably 20 - 30 people that will be accessing this computer all day long.

If I use Linux the authentication might be a problem. We use Active Directory here and the passwords need to change about every month or so. The last time that I set up a Linux fileserver, I made the username and password the same as their windows logon so that the mapped drive loaded automatically.

These guys are not going to want to be bothered with putting in a new username and password to get to their files.

Ever since we got our new domain controller, people have complained. They took away mapping of network drives which I had to fix with a little vb script that runs on their local machiens.

So...does anyone have any suggestion as to what I can use or a way to set up a file server? I have the box and a 300gig drive along with a backup system. But am having some issues.

Right now it is running Windows XP and every once in a while, a user will get the "No more connections can be made to this remote computer" Which causes panic to the end users.

Thanks in advance for any and all ideas.

Later,

C:\

Well, windows 2003 Server with the right licences

On a side node, it shouldn't be much of a problem to get samba/linux into your active directory, I believe,
so you really could authenticate against your active directory.

Use Linux, and use OpenLDAP to authenticate from the Active Directory userbase. Make it an NFS capable server if you plan to export to other linux machines, Samba if you're going purely to a windows basis, both if the environment is mixed.

NFS and Samba HowTos are located on The Linux Document Project

OpenLDAP Server HowTo: http://sapiens.wustl.edu/~sysmain/info/openldap/

Hooking OpenLDAP into an Active Directory domain: http://www.grennan.com/ldap-HOWTO.html


Justice 4 Pat Richard

ah....good info. Thanks!


The OpenLDAP connecting with Active Directory will be very helpful!
I think I might try gentoo out to run Samba and the OpenLDAP.

Thanks again!

Later,

C:\

This is just what i've been doing at work for the better part of this and last week - joining a samba machine to an AD domain.

Works nicely, but takes some time to get to know the pitfalls and come up with the 'perfect' configuration for your setup. But it was (and still is..) more complicated with our setup as it is a server which has been part of another domain before and should now be accessible for users from the old nt4 domain as well as for those of the Active Directory domain..... pretty wild seeing all this actually *can* be done using a debian box & samba.

It's all much more manageable if you're starting from scratch though. I'd go with Debian or Ubuntu myself, but if you can get a Gentoo installation set up with Samba support for kerberos + winbind + ldap then it won't make much of a difference I guess

Some more links?

http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3487081
http://www.wlug.org.nz/ActiveDirectorySamba
http://www.wlug.org.nz/ActiveDirectoryKerberos
http://www.thelazyadmin.com/index.php?archives/381-LinuxUnix-Active-Directory-Authentication-Integration-Part-1.html
http://thelazyadmin.com/index.php?/archives/383-LinuxUnix-Active-Directory-Authentication-Integration-Part-2.html
http://info.ccone.at/INFO/Samba/Samba-Guide/unixclients.html#adssdm
http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/domain-member.html#ads-member

thanks for all those links kuckus.

I might stick with Debian or Kubuntu. I have a Kubuntu box here at home and love it. anyway, thanks for all the links and info

Later,

C:\