In your experience Best Linux Server Edition

[Frank]

If you're going to use it to run VMs, it won't make any difference. And I'm not convinced those things are need-haves in the first place.

 

[SPM]

You can get a Samba server to authenticate off a Windows PDC or a Windows AD server. Samba can also work as a Windows PDC. The next version of Samba will be also able to function as a Windows AD server.

Winbind is the preferred method of authentication.

Read man smb.conf in detail. It is worth going through this thoroughly and understanding this if you want to run a fileserver. Also look up the howtos on Samba authentication off a Windows AD server.

For security RHEL 5/CENTOS 5/Fedora Core 6 have SE Linux. However you should always install setroubleshooter if you run SELinux in enforcing mode. For SuSE you have AppArmour which protects individual server applications.

 

[demonic]

SPM, you know when SAMBA server will be an AD server?

Will it be Samba server 3.0? I see this is the latest rls: Samba 3.0.25rc1

 

[SPM]

Version 4
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/softwa...Active-Directory/0,130061733,139234687,00.htm
http://news.samba.org/releases/4.0.0tp4/
http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20070131.113111.9a30500c.en.html
It is still only a technology preview (pre-alpha) though at this stage, and will be for a little while yet.

 

[the maddman]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but CentOS 5 is out.

This makes me a happy camper. Time to see if I can just "yum upgrade" my way to 5.0

 

[SPM]

If you are looking to set up a dedicated SMB fileserver box, you might also want to look at this:

http://www.openfiler.com/about/

 

[the maddman]

Just as an FYI, live upgrades from Centos 4.x to 5.0 don't seem to work to great. I'll be trying a offline upgrade here soon, and I'll post back with my experences.

 

[Frank]

If you are looking to set up a dedicated SMB fileserver box, you might also want to look at this:

http://www.openfiler.com/about/

I second that. It's great for most users who simply want an easy and cheap NAS. And you can expand the possibilities as much as you like.