Linux File Server in an Microsoft Domain

[George Toft]

*** PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS ***

I had a SuSE file server serving up a Windows workgroup.  One night, the 
SuSE updater thing (fou4s) updated samba from version 3 to version 4. 
The new config file was not configured so it did not work.  Dead 
fileserver :(

It took less time for me to set up samba using the "old" config on a 
RHEL3 box on the same network than I figured it would be to learn the 
new config file, test, validate, etc.

so......

IMO, I would avoid SuSE.  After Novell bought it, the quality took a 
quantum drop (maybe multiple quantum drops).  I found it hung frequently 
(SuSE Enterprise Server 9 and SuSE Workstation 9.1).  I am not 
impressed.  For those of you that know me, know that I pushed SuSE for 
years.  Plenty of distro flame wars in the archives show that I 
supported SuSE.  All things change.

Red Hat, on the other hand, is a pleasure to deal with.  LSB-compliant, 
well documented, stable.  I am in charge of over 120 Red Hat Enterprise 
Linux servers for one of my clients, and I have only seen one 
vendor-related problem.  RHEL 4 has at least two improvements that I 
submitted, which demonstrates their commitment to improving the product.

Biggest point to consider is that Red Hat won't change the versions of 
the packages you are using.  Any security issues that arise are 
back-ported to the supported releases, but you won't see the problem I 
had with SuSE described above.

George Toft, CISSP, MSIS
AGD,LLC
www.agdllc.com
623-203-1760

When was the last time you backed up your business data?
Excellent!  When did you verify that your backups actually worked?





Bryan.ONeal at asu.edu wrote:
> Ok, I am about to add a file server into our Microsoft domain (I hope)  I have
> looked at all the read me's and it seems that samba 4 should handle the
> Microsoft permissions no problem.  I am looking at either SuSE 9 Enterprise or
> Red Hat Enterprise.  Any thought, recommendations, experiences, or warnings? 
> It's for my work so I am quite nervous.  I real would hat to have them drop $3K
> just to tell them “Opps! You have to drop another $8K to make it work because
> were going Microsoft.”
> 
> 1) Has anyone ever done this before?
> 2) What can you tell me about doing it?
> 3) If I were to choose SuSE vs. Red Hat as an file server that is integrated
> into a MS Active Directory, which would you recommend and why?
> 
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