I'm curious as to what are the current "best practices" when it comes to centralized administration of a network of Unix (primarily Linux, but not necessarily so) machines? Essentially, what is the equivalent of Active Directory for a network with one or more Unix hosts? The immediate answer I come up with would be something like OpenLDAP plus PAM but what I'm looking for is the suite of tools (GUI and CLI apps) for managing the directory, deploying software, centralizing sign-on and security, managing printers, etc. In a perfect world, I would like to centralize administration of Windows, Unix, and OS X machines via a single directory service, though I imagine such a solution would be expensive and/or cumbersome if it even existed. Or is this something Samba 4 will do?
posted by Imhotep is Invisible on Sep 9, 2009 - 5 answers

Where can I find traditional latin american music online? [more inside]
posted by lilnemo on Sep 5, 2009 - 8 answers

How do you get Time Machine working with Windows Home Server? [more inside]
posted by birdlips on May 1, 2009 - 10 answers

Custom Folder Icons on Network Shares - Microsoft says it can't be done... are they right? [more inside]
posted by Nice Guy Mike on Apr 12, 2009 - 1 answer

Two SMB shares on OSX with same/similar names causing big headaches. Is there a way to force mount points? [more inside]
posted by furtive on Mar 25, 2009 - 1 answer

I recently lost a raid array on a ubuntu 8.04 server forcing me to rebuild it from scratch and/or restore data from backup. (I have copies of /var, /etc, and /home) The problem is I can't seem to rebuild the server so that it works exactly the way it did before, this is killing me!! (fyi... I inherited this system). My specific problem seems to be with Samba. I'm looking for help in two different ways... help 1) either figure out how to restore this system with what I've got backed up. Or fix samba so it works. See details below: [more inside]
posted by purenitrous on Feb 17, 2009 - 9 answers

Why can't I see my Ubuntu 8.10 shared folders and computers on a network with Samba installed and started and the folders shared. [more inside]
posted by jeffreyclong on Nov 25, 2008 - 2 answers

XP client removes write permissions on Samba share [more inside]
posted by chengjih on Aug 5, 2008 - 3 answers

Is there a utility to tell me what kind of filesystem my current working directory is, and it's limits? [more inside]
posted by nomisxid on May 6, 2008 - 7 answers

Introduce me to some seriously awesome Brazilian music and/or Cuban and Argentinian music! [more inside]
posted by Sijeka on Apr 13, 2008 - 27 answers

Issue with Samba (on Ubuntu) file sharing and ownership of files. How do I set it so the ordinary user will not take ownership when saving over a file? (more details inside) [more inside]
posted by ijoyner on Feb 13, 2008 - 1 answer

AustinMusicFilter: I need a CD by a group called Samba Thistle. And can't find it anywhere online. [more inside]
posted by nramsey on Nov 20, 2007 - 5 answers

Getting Splunk running on Solaris 5.8, with log files on Windows boxes. [more inside]
posted by ajp on Oct 23, 2007 - 2 answers

How do I integrate several sub-networks for Windows/Samba compatibility in a rather complicated home-office environment? [more inside]
posted by loquacious on Aug 12, 2007 - 5 answers

Is there any way to resume an interrupted file copy in Mac OS X? [more inside]
posted by Ø on Jul 14, 2007 - 8 answers

Here's what I know: I can access my smb share without difficulty via the Finder/Network or by mounting it manually, but what I can't seem to do is automount my samba share on boot/login. There's a reward and twice more inside. [more inside]
posted by furtive on Jan 2, 2007 - 13 answers

I have a friend that will be traveling in Brazil from Sept. 28 until Oct. 24. I have been helping her gather information for her trip and realized that AskMefi would be a great resource (particularly from people living or recently traveling in Brazil). She is a jazz pianist/composer/vocalist from the US who will visiting San Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and Aracaju/Salvador. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! [more inside]
posted by garypratt on Aug 27, 2006 - 5 answers

I need to update my Brazilian music collection. What recent albums (last two years) by Brazilian artists should I buy? [more inside]
posted by fdhidalgo on Aug 7, 2006 - 13 answers

So I've just deleted a bunch of files which were held on an Ubuntu server, from my XP laptop, via a Samba share. Is there any way to retrieve them?
posted by pompomtom on May 27, 2006 - 3 answers

How do I stop passwords from expiring in my home Windows XP / Linux (Samba) network? [more inside]
posted by Nelson on May 4, 2006 - 7 answers

Linux Printer Share: i'm way over my head, I have a HP 648c USB printer, and I want to use my xbox that runs Debian natively (Xebian) to share the printer. Physical connection is no problem. But I am in way over my head in terms of setting up a simple printer share. It appear possible via Samba, but my experiments didn't pan out. [more inside]
posted by Napierzaza on Apr 24, 2006 - 13 answers

NAS Filter: I'm looking to buy a network storage device to replace the ancient IBM Aptiva running Fedora with Samba/NFS that I've been using for the last six years. I want something that I can attach to my home network and put a 120 - 200 G harddrive into and mount remotely from both Linux and Windows boxen. [more inside]
posted by octothorpe on Mar 2, 2006 - 13 answers

Samba and the Mac OS X Finder are driving me crazy. [more inside]
posted by eschatfische on Aug 19, 2005 - 8 answers

How do I set up point-and-click filesharing in a heterogenous home network (Linux and Windows XP) [more inside]
posted by psychotic_venom on Aug 5, 2005 - 2 answers

How do I connect to a network identified by smb://sub.domain.tld/share$ from XP Pro? It works fine in OS X (of course) using "Go->Connect to Server", but on Windows neither IE nor Firefox nor My Network Places seems to understand this kind of URL. What do I need?
posted by Aaorn on Aug 3, 2005 - 4 answers

My boss has a desktop running Windows 2000, attached to it is a non-network hp inkjet. Also on boss's desk sits a g4 powerbook with a wireless connection to the school. [more inside]
posted by craniac on Feb 28, 2005 - 4 answers