CentOS 5 as a Domain Controller

[bubarooni1]

Hi,

I have an old Windows NT 4.0 box that acts as my Primary Domain Controller. My NT 4.0 BDC recently died so I need to have a backup means of authenticating users and the like. I kinda started looking at doing this a while back but got distracted with other projects. With the BDC down I need to look at getting something setup though. My Linux experience is limited, I do manage a RHEL 5 based mail server, a third party app running on an old scounix box and have a centos 5.0 workstation that i dork around on.

Ideally I would like to bring up a CentOS box in the equivalent role of a backup domain controller and get used to using it in that role. Then bring up another CentOS box configured the same way. Then, take down the old (unsupported!) NT 4.0 PDC down and promote the first CentOS box to the role of Primary Domain Controller.

So I think I want a box that will:

1. Authenticate my domain users when they login
2. Dole out DHCP addresses on login (only after the NT PDC is taken down)
3. Resolve machine names to IP addresses like WINS does

I'm downloading the CentOS 5.2 iso right now and don't know what packages I need to install to achieve the above. A nice GUI interface for these would be nice too!

Any direction will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks In Advance!

 

[thedaver]

checkout 'samba.org' for documentation on building up liunx machines as PDC and BDC

D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting

http://www.dermanagement.com/

 

[chipk]

Though "real" Unix admins will scoff , you might check out Webmin for a GUI interface to many admin tasks:

http://www.webmin.com/

 

[danomac]

Other packages you'll likely need are bind (DNS) dhcp (that should be obvious ;-)) and ldap.

There's tons of information for configuring these all over the internet...

 

[itsp1965]

Don't know if this will help you, but I ran into this guide to setting up Fedora (RedHat) Samba for Windows AD compatibility.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a8-6d81-4bc2-94e9-448d68a7d06d&DisplayLang=en

HTH

 

[bubarooni1]

UGH!!!

everything i read basically says this:

'Samba cannot exist in a mixed Samba/Windows domain controller environment (Samba cannot be a BDC of a Windows PDC or vice versa). Alternatively, Samba PDCs and BDCs can coexist.'

my idea of bringing up a samba bdc and learning it on the fly is dead...