Re: Linux or Mac boxes as members of a Windows network

["Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Does http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialMicrosoftWindowsNetworkIntegration.html
help you? It is outdated, yes, since it refers to pretty old distros
and some of the workarounds are probably no longer needed for modern
Linux distros - but should give you a lot of relevant information.

More inline.

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 2:02 AM, McLauchlan, Kevin
<Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> logged-in member of domain and workgroup, and therefore have seamless
> access to company file and printer resources anywhere in the world from
> my Windows desktop.

I wouldn't call it seamless, since there will usually be some degree
of clunkiness, but if you can put up with that, great.
I don't remember off-hand about authentication with a Windows domain
controller (I used to do it the other way - have the Linux machine
pretend to be a Windows domain controller, and have Windows machines
authenticate logons with the Linux box); however, the link above talks
about auth against MS Active Directory, which may be available at your
company if the IT dept have set it up?

> What's needed for that computer (same hardware, same MAC address,
> willing to accept hostname and IP from DHCP server), to be recognized as
> a valid box on that network, prompt for my credentials, and then give me
> the same access, with the same ease (in, say, KDE/Konqueror instead of
> in Windows Explorer) of access to all the servers and shares?

> Must everything out in the company WAN be running Samba and CUPS?  (Not
> going to happen.)

No, not AFAIK. Samba is the F/OSS equivalent of Windows networking
protocols; you use it on your Linux machine, but the Windows machines
keep running their built-in networking stuff - no mods there. CUPS
again would run on your Linux system, not on Windows boxes.

> Or is there some straightforward thing that IT Dept. (specifically the
> network admins) can do that basically says "Hey, we still recognize this
> PC even though it happens to be running Linux instead of Windows just
> now, and we'll allow you to present your credentials, and we'll accept
> them if you're you"??

You can set up your Linux box to authenticate against MS AD as
mentioned before; the IT dept will need to have MS AD set up and
configured.

> Who's got experience with mixed networks and can point to just the right
> FAQ or Howto?  I suspect that there's just a switch (preference) that
> somebody in IT needs to flip so that the mostly Windows servers will
> stop being picky about the religion of the connecting computer. But is
> that too simplistic?

IMO, yes. There's no magic bullet/switch. It's a lot of persistence,
learning, and experimentation.

> >From you warriors at the forefront, what's the current poop?

This list is decidedly apolitical, so I won't answer that...

Regards
Ed.
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