Gosh. Try to recall what we are dealing with for a minute, will you? [LWN.net]

Gosh. Try to recall what we are dealing with for a minute, will you?

Posted Dec 1, 2011 20:54 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Releasing Samba 4 by magnus
Parent article: Releasing Samba 4

Or can you chain the Samba4 to use the existing LDAP/Krb as back-end. Or are you forced to have two separate domains and user databases, one for Unix and one for Windows?

Gosh. Where such a crazy questions come from? AD technology was created from scratch with a few important goals. And one of them (very important for the Microsoft, but of course not to it's customers) was: make positively, absolutely, 200% sure that you can not ever use large Unix systems with it's LDAP and Kerberos servers.

Microsoft planned to kill Unix - and to do that it needed to nip the coexistence plan (Unix is on server, while Windows is on client) in the bud.

Samba can not fix this fundamental design decision. So it's either Samba4 in charge or separate user databases. I think over time third capability may arrive: some LDAP/Kerberos servers may be extended to support bastardized version of LDAP/Kerberos meeded for Windows clients... but don't hold your breath...

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Gosh. Try to recall what we are dealing with for a minute, will you?

Posted Dec 1, 2011 21:54 UTC (Thu) by magnus (subscriber, #34778) [Link]

Khim, your condescending tone is unneccesary. I asked a question and gave a couple of alternative answers, some of them I knew in advance were probably not true. That's a good way to get your questions answered, since many people love to point out when you are wrong...

I was unable to find the answer to this pretty basic question on the Samba website and documentation. It's probably obvious to the devels and experienced admins.

Gosh. Try to recall what we are dealing with for a minute, will you?

Posted Dec 5, 2011 6:19 UTC (Mon) by speedster1 (subscriber, #8143) [Link]

I read that reply as somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The "crazy question" is really a sensible goal for those who have to maintain a mixed network, but the sensible desire of customers has been intentionally foiled by Microsoft using "embrace and extend" strategy to discourage such mixed networks (assuming it would usually be the unix side that got dropped).