[kwlug-disc] Linux replacement for Windows Domain Server

[Paul Nijjar]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 01:32:09AM -0500, Bob Jonkman wrote:
>
> The problem I'm trying to solve is authentication/authorization to use  
> the shared printers, without using shared passwords, and without needing  
> to whack-a-mole every workstation when someone forgets or changes a  
> password.
>
> I'm hoping to make the Linux server do the authentication in a  
> Windows-like way.  For each workstation I can change the login from  
> Workgroup to Domain, then perform user and printer administration from  
> the server.

Samba 3 can do some of this. You can have an smbpasswd file on your
Linux server which will have login information for every printer user.
Then you set up a printer share on the Samba server and assign
appropriate permissions to it. 

In this scenario I think the Windows workstations stay on a workgroup.
They don't join a domain. That means you need to keep usernames (not
passwords) synchronized across your workstations, which could still
require some whack-a-mole. 

The big problem here is that you say that you have shared printers
attached to multiple workstations. I don't think a simple Samba
solution saves you here. 

Maybe you're really looking for a combination of Samba and CUPS? I can
envision scenarios where the Windows workstations "secretly" share
printers to the Linux box using CUPS magic, and then Samba advertises
those printers to the world. But I don't have any direct experience
doing this. 

- Paul