is a *nix domain possible?

D

danaeckel

Greetings,
I have a combination of computers from Linux, OS X, and FreeBSD. I was wondering if one could setup roaming profiles which would keep links to home folders on NFS share of my FreeBSD file server, and also have central passwords so one can use the same name and password from one machine to the next, or maybe even lock users off computers completely.

Thank YOu!
Dana
 
There are a couple of ways of doing it.

Back in the day we ran NIS+ to sync passwords between our unix machines - and as the password file is synced, anything you put in there for the home directory will propagate to all your machines.

If this location is an NFS share, assuming the device has access to the NFS share, home directories will "roam".

As far as the current "best" way goes, I suspect you may be looking at Kerberos and LDAP (which will also give you single sign on).


But it is certainly possible, yes.
 
Just with LDAP and NFS you can get a long way. LDAP will give you a centralized accounts database and with NFS and amd(8) you can 'automagically' have a home directory mounted when needed.
 
The only problem is if security is an issue to you. Because if you don't use a kerberized NFS (GSSAPI) then your NFS shares are practically readable and writeable by anyone (if the mount is exported rw) having access to your shares. If you trust your users (if you're talking about your home network), then you don't need kerberos.
 
You might want to take a look at the Zentyal project. They have a pretty straight forward web/GUI interface which allows people to create domains and roaming profiles in a point-n-click manner. Zentyal is aimed at fairly small networks, so I wouldn't recommend it for large deployments, but for a small office or home use it's quite good.
 
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