Administering Windows NT Domains Using a non-Windows NT PDC

The chronicles kept by an explorer as he or she journeys into new territories can be invaluable for those who come later. The writing describe successes and failures, warning and hints to other possible solutions yet unfound. The evolution of a network is not different than the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 1800’s. Each day we learn something new. Either our proposed solution worked or it did not. It was either a dead-end or perhaps simply a detour. In the Fall of 1997 with the release of Samba version 1.9.18alpha1, the College of Engineering at Auburn University began to experiment with the possibility of using a non-Windows NT machine (i.e. Samba running on a Solaris server) as a Primary Domain Controller for Windows NT desktop clients. This journey has continued through the present and is still progressing. This paper will be a post-narrative of that journey. It is our belief that the administrative models and tools developed to support this environment will also be beneficial in other integrated environments, either in parts or as a whole. This journey will be divided into in five topics: (1) relevant details regarding the configuration of the Samba PDC, (2) user account management, (3) remote file and printer access, (4) remote administration of clients and servers, and (5) the remote updates of systems, applications and associated settings. Each section will remain distinct enough so as to allow the reader to implement the varying portions of this paper independently. Defining the Issue at Hand The College of Engineering network is like many networks. We support a wide range of users each desiring different services. Some users require access to UNIX servers running various applications while others find one of the various Windows platforms to be their OS of choice. When integrating heterogeneous networks, one possible solution is to maintain separate networks in parallel. For example, each network maintains the servers necessary for implementing services to support its associated clients even though each network may logically exist on the same wire. Services such as access to network printers are duplicated across server platforms. The parallelism is made transparent to the user by synchronizing the user account information. The other possibility for integration is to centralize primary services such as user authentication on one server OS. The server must then support the functionality necessary to allow clients of other operating systems to become citizens of the network. The College of Engineering at Auburn University has selected the second option. Our goal has been to provide continuity of services wherever possible without sacrificing the stability of these services. For example, users are able to access the same disk space as their home directory when logging into a PC or logging into a UNIX workstation, and network printers can also be accessed from either client platform. Perhaps the most important point in achieving this consistency is that each user is always authenticated with the same username / password pair.