Samba beats Windows (vnunet) [LWN.net]

Samba beats Windows (vnunet)

Posted Oct 14, 2003 13:52 UTC (Tue) by erat (guest, #21)
In reply to: Samba beats Windows (vnunet) by gdt
Parent article: Samba beats Windows (vnunet)

The choices are to upgrade to Windows Server 2003, which is expensive and to operate well requires implementing Active Directory; or to cross-grade to Linux, which can be cheap and which does not require a change to authentication mechanisms.

You hit on a subject (and all too quickly brushed past it) that I'm sure will tint IT folks' evaluations of WS2K3 and Linux/Samba: authentication, or more accurately, management of identity data.

There was a time when machines running NT did little more than serve files, share printers, and perhaps run web servers (the latter still blows my mind. Why would anyone do such a thing??). Doing side-by-side comparisons of Windows servers and Linux servers was easier because the functionality expected of each was sort of limited. However, with identity management, evaluations become a bit more complicated.

I've used WS2K3 and have done a fair amount of work with Active Directory (along with the cross-domain and cross-forest goofiness that goes along with it). As much as I hate to say it, I think it's a decent system. Setting up AD is fairly straightforward. And with apps like Vintela Authentication or with "experimental" configurations of LDAP/DNS/Samba/pam_smb you should be able to use identity data from AD with Linux. I won't get into an MS sales pitch because I'm sure they don't need/deserve the advertising, but I did want to point out that the identity management stuff in WS2K3 may actually be a selling point, not a hinderance.

Onward...

The new version of Samba has some capabilities of dealing with identity management (winbind?), and I believe it works with AD. I haven't looked into this; I'm merely parroting information that I heard elsewhere. A truly fair comparison between WS2K3 and Linux/Samba would need to include a comparison of how identity management works with AD and winbind, or even how Linux/Samba can be used to completely replace AD.

As for speed... Compare how Linux/Samba stacks up against a WAN with WS2K3 servers that utilize cross-forest trusts (including identity firewalls), global catalog sync'ing across the WAN, etc. I'm not saying one will outshine the other because I haven't done any such benchmarking. I do think that kind of comparison is more valuable than one that simply places Linux/Samba on top just because it does a few things quickly.

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