Re: [school-discuss] Samba - Taking the Plunge

[Rasjid Wilcox <rasjidw@bigpond.com>]

On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 2:22 am, Kyle Hutson wrote:
> I've talked our school administration into trying Linux w/ Samba to
> replace our Netware Network. Any particular management tips or
> gotchas? Even a good website to get started would be helpful.
>
> Thanks!

One option you might want to have a look at is the Mitel SME product 
(http://www.e-smith.org and http://www.e-smith.com, although the .org site 
will be down for few days while being moved to a new server).  The system is 
GPL'ed and can be downloaded and used for free.  But for a relatively small 
amount of money you can get a supported version and some additional features 
(such as virus checking of email).  Even for the supported version there are 
no user licence charges.

Its main functions are file-serving, mail-serving, web-serving and acting as 
an internet gateway and firewall (if required).  It will server files to both 
Windows and Mac happily.  Almost all of the installation configuration and 
all of the day-to-day administration can be done via an easy to use web 
interface that makes setting up and administering an NT server look very 
difficult.  A full server install takes about 30 minutes including 
configuration, although for a school setting you may need to search around 
for the script that loads many users straight from a text file.

Its ease of use come at the price of loss of flexibility, and it will depend 
greatly on exacly what you want to do as to whether you would be better 
served by a standard distribution or not.  However, the Mitel SME server is a 
'turnkey' product that is worth having a look at.  And at only 275MB for the 
full iso, it probably won't blow your bandwidth budget to do so.

Rasjid.

PS.  No, I don't work for Mitel, but I am a happy user of their system.  :-)