Best way I can come up with is to use AD as the authenticator (and for group policy support of Windows clients), and use OS X Server as the file server. The trick is to be able to apply policies to OS X users through open directory. There's supposed to be a way to use AD as the primary LDAP directory and pull additional attributes from another "local" directory but haven't quite figured it out yet. Samba can be configured to use Kerberos, but it's not the default.
Macs can't really be managed from AD like Windows can. Same goes in the other direction too. So ya kinda need both (AD and OD). In my scenario, I'm shooting for single sign-on using Kerberos. To make it even more complicated, I would really like to authenticate from a MIT Kerberos realm, but Samba doesn't have support for that yet.
Documentation is very limited with it comes down to the fine details, unfortunately.
Robbie Foust OIT - Systems and Core Services Duke University
Noah Eiger wrote:
Hello:
I need some advice about file service, directory management, and user
authentication in a mixed Windows/Mac environment.
I have a magazine client with approximately 70 users: half Macs, half Windows. As you might expect, the Macs are the art department and editorial; the PCs are business, advertising, etc. All workstations will either be running OSX (most recent) or WinXP Pro. Currently, there is no NOS, and file service is handled by a mixture of WinNT, Win2k, and AppleShare 9x.
My initial thought was to just let AD handle everything and spend the effort on getting the Macs to play nice with the Windows servers. Exchange is likely. However, the in-house IT guy wants to explore Apple's server offerings.
So, the questions are: - Is the speed and quality of the Windows servers sufficient for
Mac clients (many handling large image or graphics files)?
- Is AD "managing" of Macs and Mac users sufficient? - If there is a reason to deploy an Apple server, can it be managed
by AD? That is, can it play like a Windows member server?
- Finally, is there any reason to entertain running the whole shop
under the Apple server and Open Directory?
Many thanks.
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