Re: [school-discuss] Active Directory support in linux distributions

["Matthew W. Ross" <mross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not looking for full GPO implementations, nor managed printers or DFS support. I am simply looking for a Linux distribution that supports a user's home folder as it is specified in Active Directory. This home folder specification has existed at least since Windows NT, and even Samba supports providing one for users. Why can't a Linux distribution support mounting this at login? I was asking in hopes that I simply haven't looked at Distro X, and somebody on the list could nudge me in the right direction.

As for what I mean by a "Supported Distribution", I simply meant that the distro was still in development, not abandoned or defunct.

If such a distro doesn't exist yet, I'm rather sad for the Linux community. This is a pivotal feature which our school district depends on: The user's data must be backed up. We manage this only by having the files in a central storage which we can reliably backup ourselves. Without this ability, we cannot offer it to the users as a workstation, only as an internet kiosk.

Please don't take my comments as snide or rude. I am still hopeful that either this distribution exists, or that this feature becomes available in the near future.


--Matt Ross
Ephrata School District


----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Dressel
[mailto:tjdressel@xxxxxxxxx]
To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent:
Tue, 25 May 2010 18:08:09 -0700
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Active
Directory support in linux distributions


> There are no other platforms that integrate with deep level things like
> group policy. Apple comes close on the being able to apply some GPO's and
> access to home folders and guid mapping, and there are other platforms that
> do some of the manageability of Active Directory, but none that integrate
> very cleanly. From what I've seen its less about manageability and more
> about configuration management. On the surface those sound similar, but they
> are actually quite different in practice.
> 
> I think the only way to get to a heterogeneous network is to implement some
> sort of LDAP between two or more different directory structures. When you
> say "supported", that pretty much limits you to enterprise deployments with
> vendors like Red Hat and IBM, but it doesn't come cheap. The whole idea
> behind support in the open source community is that its supported by the
> community.
>