Re: Is SUSE the best for Samba?

From: Paulo Rocha (paulorocha_at_megamail.pt)
Date: 05/19/04 

Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 04:13:44 +0100

daprole wrote:

> I really need is to learn (this summer) how to set up PDCs in such a
> way that every student who logs in goes to their own network share.
> And since we are dealing with 4300 students and 230 teachers, that the
> computer teachers can access and change passwords.

Configuring an authentication and file server on Linux is not a recommended
task for a newbie. But since you worked with Unix for 5 years, probably the
command line does not frighten you :-) But since your school spends so much
money on Microsoft licenses, why not buy SuSE Enterprise Server 8? It has
much better configuration tools than the Professional version, and has a
special Education price of US$400:
          http://www.suse.com/us/company/edu/products_prices.html

> I also need to set up space limits for each student (different in
> different classes)

Why do you want to place limits per class, instead of globally per student?
If you give 50 MB for each student, it is his/her task to manage that space
in the way it suits him/her the most.

> and to have DNS running reliably.

Set up two servers, one acting as primary DNS and the other as secondary
DNS. You don't need to buy 2 licenses of SuSE Enterprise Server for that.
You can use one license to install on both servers.

> Help, scripts, recommendations of books on Samba would be appreciated.

The best tutorial on how to configure Samba with LDAP is here:
      http://samba.idealx.org/index.en.html
Beware the tutorial focus on RedHat. There are some (small) differences.

Anyway, it is easier to set up a PDC on SuSE Enterprise Server than on SuSE
Professional.

Paulo Rocha