change our network from 100% M$ to 100% non-M$; advice?

[gwu]

We are thinking about moving our business network into a 100% non-microsoft environment(it is currently 100% microsoft). What is the best way to go about this?
Linux can easily be substituted for iis, microsoft SQL,dhcp, and DNS. But what about active directory fle sharng stucture and email. We were thinking about using Mac as our client boxes which of course would need access to the linux server files.

 

[alsicorp]

I've started the move at our company. So far I've replaced 3 Win2k servers with a single redhat 8.0 server (same hardware). However I only have 60-70 users; so I use samba and security = user. If you have many more than that you should consider LDAP. Both windows/mac can use it for login, address lists, etc. Here is a good pdf I found via google:

http://samba.idealx.org/dist/samba-ldap-howto.pdf

Mail/proxy/firewall is my next "leap"!
Good luck!

 

[HeyZuess]

ldap - most services can use ldap for authentication. I'd use that to store users in. plus for your global address book just about every mail client can use it too.

the link provided in the above post has excellent documentation for setting up samba as a pdc using ldap for the backend, but you won't need it if you get rid of all the M$ stuff.

 

[StarTAC]

mail, firewall and proxy are not that difficult to setup either...

anyone joining the Linux world for the first time should start off with Sendmail [www.sendmail.org].. it comes pre-packaged and is quite easy to setup... it provides more security enhancements as opposed to Exchange, MDaemon and all those Windows mail servers... once u feel comfortable with it, then u can make the next move to Postfix, a faster, more robust, more secure and more flexible mail server.. Postfix [www.postfix.org] also ships with the Linux distribution and emulates some sendmail characteristics.. it's faster, leaner and more secure.. other more sophisticated mailers include Exim, which should be tackled after running Postfix.... if necessary...

for a firewall, Linux, by default, will come with IPChains and IPTables... IPChains will run on both the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, while IPTables will run on only 2.4.. IPChains, which is a good place to start, provides advanced packet filtering based on protocol, port, source or destination IP, and lots more.... IPTables, which is more advanced, carries some similarities with IPChains, but provides more enhacements such as connection tracking and stateful firewall inspection.. both are free and can make for a very secure server and network.. if done properly, they can rival a Cisco PIX firewall and other hardware-based firewalls.... they ship with the Linux distribution...

now, a proxy, which in Linux is not necessary to share an internet connection, is also free and ships along... the first one of choice is Squid.. Squid is basically a proxy and cache server... when configured properly on the right hardware and network, Squid can reduce latency by as much as 40% and save up to 45% of WAN bandwidth.... however, if this is not your liking, the IPChains and IPTables firewalls will provide internet connection sharing.. it does this by using NAT or masquerading.. the number of connections are limitless and it does it transparently... by that i mean, u don't have to setup proxy IPs and port numbers in user's browsers.. all u do is specify the Linux server as the gateway, and u are good to go...

i hope this gives u some inspiration.. Linux isn't all that hard..

good luck..