[Fedora-directory-users] Trying to set up a simple authentication and file server

[George Holbert]

Hi Andy,

Not to discourage you, but if you're going to switch from NIS to LDAP, 
be prepared to spend a lot of time.
For a single site with 20 users, the simplicity of NIS might make it a 
better choice, particularly since you and your co-workers  are already 
familiar with it.

> (1) Is fedora-ds the right tool for the job? Perhaps it is using a
> sledgehammer to crack a nut.

FDS is a great tool, but yeah, it is kind of a sledgehammer for your case.


> (3) How do I add the automap? Various websites talk about
> "automountInformation:" entry, but where does that come in? It does not
> appear as an attribute I can add to a person.

You need to add some extra schema.
http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/wiki/Howto:Automount


> (4) Does anyone know of a simple walk-through documentation to do this
> as I am surely not the first person to try and do this with FDS?

Gary Tay has a lot of good notes on NIS-to-LDAP topics here:
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~garyttt

I don't know of any one-size-fits-all recipes.

Good luck!
-- George



Andy Schofield wrote:
> Please excuse the obvious newbie posting: I am struggling to get my
> head round fedora-ds and what I am trying to do must be so standard.
>
> I am trying to set up a simple server for about 20 users that allows
> clients running Redhat Enterprise 4 to authenticate over ldap and find
> the automounter map which tells them how to automount a users home
> space. 
>
> We are moving from a solaris NIS server which from a clients
> perspective is trivial to setup:
>  you just run system-config-authentication
>  + enable "configure NIS"
>  + fill in the NIS domain and the NIS server and it just works.
>
> Running system-config-authentication also has an option to enable
> "configure LDAP" where you fill in the LDAP Search Base DN and the LDAP
> Server. I would like to create the server that will respond
> appropriately. 
>
> So my questions:
>
> (1) Is fedora-ds the right tool for the job? Perhaps it is using a
> sledgehammer to crack a nut.
>
> (2) I've more or less got the authentication bit working but the
> console seems counter intuitive. The opening screen has a tab "Users
> and Group" which allows you to search and add users but this, as far as
> I can see, as nothing to do with the users that the server will
> authenticate. They need to be added way down the tree, 
> by opening the Directory Server,
> choosing the suffix and rightclicking the "People" and adding new. 
> Is this the correct method of adding users?
> (I don't want to import them from the passwd file - there are so few of
> them I want to do things by hand).
>
> (3) How do I add the automap? Various websites talk about
> "automountInformation:" entry, but where does that come in? It does not
> appear as an attribute I can add to a person.
>
> (4) Does anyone know of a simple walk-through documentation to do this
> as I am surely not the first person to try and do this with FDS?
>
> Thanks for your help
> Andy