[K12OSN] directory services in a linux centric cross platform workstation environment

[Bob Mead]

We use openLDAP as our main authentication tool. Our school is mostly 
win-doze desktops with some macs, yet our server infrastructure is 
mainly linux. We have only two win servers (required for a few specific 
apps). All of our clients (some 1300+ computers district-wide) 
authenticate through the LDAP server. I wasn't here for the build out, 
but I can say that it works. For our win clients we have samba to serve 
win-style shares and we use roaming profiles to allow transparency on 
the network. The problem we have is that our users tend to generate huge 
.profile directories and this slows down the login process to a crawl 
[or worse]. Once we fix that - it works seamlessly. As a side note, even 
our ltsp terminals and servers use the ldap server to authenticate.

Upon re-reading your post below, are you trying to build an ltsp server 
that is also your main openLDAP authentication server (in lieu of an AD 
or other auth. server)? If this is so, then I would guess that your 
installation is going to be somewhat complex.

HTH
    ~bob

Hoover Chan wrote:
> The subject line is quite a mouthful but that's pretty much the question I'm mulling over right now.
>
> I've been bombarded by proponents of Active Directory for Windows and Open Directory for the Macintosh with all the different neat network applications that become easy to implement and manage if only I switch the servers to the appropriate platform. Does anyone here have a mostly Macintosh and Windows workstation environment that integrates well with an OpenLDAP type Linux centric server? If so, how hard is it to build?
>
> A lot of my colleagues at different schools locally seem to come from using AD as their core directory service and then "bend" everything to adapt to that. I'd hate to be forced into building a Windows server just for AD...
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------- 
> Hoover Chan                     chan at sacredsf.org 
> Technology Director 
> Schools of the Sacred Heart 
> 2222 Broadway St. 
> San Francisco, CA 94115
>
> _______________________________________________
> K12OSN mailing list
> K12OSN at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
> For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>
>
>   
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: bmead.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 209 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/attachments/20090416/eaa572a5/attachment.vcf>