Logging on to NT domain

[dmd3x]

I am going to introduce RedHat 9.0 Linux to my school and it would be pretty embarassing if I couldn't get the net to work because I didn't know how to log into an NT domain. Will RedHat detect the fact that I have to do this and configure itself, or will I have to do something first?

[Jinx]

Gday,

As far as I can tell with Samba, you can access Domain resources and add the Samba host to a Domain network environment, but you don't actually "logon" as such.

Smbclient and Smbmount are the two tools I use in my Domain environment... smbmount allows you to mount SMB shares to a local mount point, kinda like NFS can. :)

www.samba.org is always a good place to start when looking for documentation on Samba.

Cya round
Jinx

[cowanrl]

I'd like to add just one thing to what Jinx said. Samba is a subject that gets discussed a lot on this forum. If you are looking for info on how to use Samba, do a search on this site. You'll find details on how to do most anything from the simplest to the most complex configurations.

[orca67]

To get your samba box to work in an NT domain, read the docs for setting up connectivity to a domain. Once your Samba box is joined to the domain you can make it act as a member server.

More information on setting Samba up as a domain member can be found at www.samba.org.

Once your Samba box is up on the domain you then have to deal with multiple user accounts, 1 for NT, 1 for Samba, and 1 for Linux. I don't know about you but to me this makes administration kind of a pain.

I'd suggest you work towards a unified logon using winbind, which allows you to use existing user accounts and groups on the domain with out duplicating them on the Samba server.
This allows you to create one user account on on the NT server and all it's credentials can get passed seamlessly to the samba server for access to user shares and printers.


More info can be found at:

http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/winbind.html

It takes a little time to get it setup, but it saves a lot of time in administration in the long run.

[dmd3x]

I dont want to duplicate any names, i want to use the existing ones that are on the NT domain. All the students use the same user name/pass, but the server should be used to authenticate it and not have it stored on the workstation's hard disk.

So, is it really possible to get the internet working without loging in?

[orca67]

Yes, winbind will allow you to use existing user accounts and groups on your NT domain. It allows you to pass user info to the samba box, keeping everything in check. Basically it's a unified login service for samba. Read the link in my previous post and it explains it better.

Here's another example:

NT server with user and groups accounts

Linux boxes set up with Samba for resource sharing, (files and printers, pdf printers, CDR burners)

Clients (MS clients aka win9x, NT, W2k, XP)

normally you would create an account on your NT PDC

To connect to your Linux box, you need 2 accounts, a Linux account and a Samba account.

You would have to manually map/login to the Samba resources.

With Winbind, you could pass NT credentials to the linux/samba box and forgo setting up accounts on that box.

Write your NT logon script to map to a resource as normal (it doesn't matter if it's on a Samba Server or an NT server)

Set permissions in your SMB.conf to allow NT users/groups to use the resources and your ready to go.

Mo muss, no fuss users are able to access anything that they are given permissions to.

I user this setup to allow all my users to print directly to PDF and Burn CD's as needed. It allows me to not have to purchase individual cd- burners for every workstation and save money

If you want email me off list and I'll help as best I can to get it set up. Like I said it takes a little while to get up and running, but once it's up and running it takes a lot of the administration headaches away.