password protectoion

[Anton Antonov]

Dear RedHat,

My name is Anton Antonov and I’m a system administrator in Neterra 
Bulgaria. In our office we have LAN including Linux and Windows 
desktops. We have server running under Red Hat Linux 7.2 with kernel 
2.4.28. On this server we have Samba v.2.2 for Windows based Desktop 
Machines and NFS for Linux based Desktop Machines. Using this server we 
have encountered a problem which we cannot solve. We need software that 
can restrict the access to several directories by password and at the 
same time all the users who have access to these directories to be able 
to access them simultaneously.

First we tried to solve this problem by exporting several directories by 
Samba and to protect them by NIS passwords. The problem that we met here 
was that the Linux users couldn’t modify the permissions to the files 
which they create.

After that we tried with some encryption tools like BCrypt. The problem 
this time was that when there was a user logged in, no one else could 
get access to the same directory.

At the end we tried with Cryptoloop and Twofish encryption, but we 
couldn’t find a tool that mounts encrypted file system on a Windows 
Desktop Installation. We exported this encrypted file systems via NFS 
and mounted them on all Linux Desktop Installations using loop devices. 
Not long after we found out that if somebody changes any file, the other 
desktop installations can see that change only if they remount the 
encrypted file system.

I’m sure there are other decisions to that problem, but apparently they 
are out of my knowledge. I’m kindly asking you for HELP!!!


I’m looking forward to your forthcoming reply.


Regards, Anton Antonov

-- 
Anton Antonov
Network Operations Center
Neterra Ltd.
Sofia, Bulgaria
Phone:  +359 2 974 33 11
Fax:    +359 2 975 34 36
Mobile: +359 888 929 966
http://www.neterra.net