Question: in a shop where all (DNS, mail, etc.) is controlled by Unix systems, do I need AD on my 2000 server?
Background:
We are a small UNIX house. We run Windows 98 and 2000 Pro using VMware for linux. We have never had a Windows Domain - I know nothing of NT. All critical files are stored on our unix systems and accessed via Samba.
We recently purchased an IBM server running Windows 2000 Server to 1) run our new DB2 database and QuickBooks; 2) split our Windows-type work out from our engineering server (just for performance-sake). Email, DNS, Samba, etc. does and shall continue to be controlled from the Unix side. My problem is setting up the 2000 Server - do I need AD or not? Just when I think I do, then I think I don't. All I really want from the server is to run the 2 apps above, share Windows files (MS office, etc.), and handle permission-setting on those files (to the best of the ability of the OS - 98 and 2000). I don't need this server to handle any internet anything, and it should use the Unix box for name resolution.
Can I avoid AD, and do you have any configuration advice? When I have AD configured it seems to want to rule the world, and then there is that documented bug with primary and secondary DNS servers (2000 server wants to be on top, then won't look anywhere else).
Thanks,
Barb
Background:
We are a small UNIX house. We run Windows 98 and 2000 Pro using VMware for linux. We have never had a Windows Domain - I know nothing of NT. All critical files are stored on our unix systems and accessed via Samba.
We recently purchased an IBM server running Windows 2000 Server to 1) run our new DB2 database and QuickBooks; 2) split our Windows-type work out from our engineering server (just for performance-sake). Email, DNS, Samba, etc. does and shall continue to be controlled from the Unix side. My problem is setting up the 2000 Server - do I need AD or not? Just when I think I do, then I think I don't. All I really want from the server is to run the 2 apps above, share Windows files (MS office, etc.), and handle permission-setting on those files (to the best of the ability of the OS - 98 and 2000). I don't need this server to handle any internet anything, and it should use the Unix box for name resolution.
Can I avoid AD, and do you have any configuration advice? When I have AD configured it seems to want to rule the world, and then there is that documented bug with primary and secondary DNS servers (2000 server wants to be on top, then won't look anywhere else).
Thanks,
Barb