user local wrote:
2007/4/3, CentOS List centoslist@gmail.com:
Hi,
Does CentOS 5 / RH 5 ship with a similar windows active directory and able to support windows workstations? I've of heard OpenLDAP and FDS. Does windows support those?
LDAP+Kerberos+smthM$specs=Active_Directory. You also should use Samba and have a Primary Domain Controller for you Windows clients. Active_Directory uses DNS to solve hosts to addresses, so you don't need a WINS server, though. I think the point to start w/ is Samba: http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/ , http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/ (jump to Chapter 5, maybe it's all you need)
AFAIK CentOS has an Anaconda chapter dedicated to installation of Kerberos, and LDAP, too, so you have no excuse to miss the party :D. Sorry about I am not more useful for you, but I think it's feasible. I would try it. (I have no experience w/ Kerberos, very little w/ OpenLDAP, Samba, and... CentOS).
Assuming you're already a somewhat competent Windows user (ie you meet the prerequisites), then a one-week course makes you competent (not expert, that comes only with experience) to create and administer an AD setup. I've done the course, though I was a little light on the prerequisites, and have some experience here.
Microsoft has this nice big GUI that takes most of the pain out of it, one just has to have some idea of what one's doing.
Until Red Hat and/or SUSE ships the tools to replicate AD's functionality, it's not there. Few enterprises are going to spend shareholder funds on a speculative venture to do the same job with harder-to-use tools. The tools will have to be better, and demonstrably able to save money.