[KLUG Members] re: Novell OES

[Mike Williams]

>
> Subject:
> Re: [KLUG Members] Novell OES
> From:
> Adam Tauno Williams <adam at morrison-ind.com>
> Date:
> Mon, 28 Mar 2005 09:23:29 -0500
>
> To:
> "The main KLUG mailing list." <members at kalamazoolinux.org>
>
>
>>> Has anybody messed with Novell Open Enterprise Server yet?  
>>    
>>
>
>I had trial disks, but for whatever reason they wouldn't install.  But
>not having much free time I didn't fight very heard.
>
>  
>
Actually, I needed the help of a buddy with Novell Partner credentials 
to get the right ones.  They might have fixed this, but the free 
download sights (which are incompatible with  all but one form of 
download manager, grrrrrrrrrr) had CD images from two different versions 
up there.  Of course, they won't work with each other.  The install is 
processing as I write this, so I won't know for a little while yet if I 
have all the right CDs yet.

>  
>
>>> I'm 
>>> mostly interested in how well it supports different OS clients, whether 
>>> it will allow once set of credentials across OS's, and whether I can 
>>> upgrade from SuSE 9.2 pro without blowing away the whole installation.
>>    
>>
>
>Honestly, I haven't met an OS client I can't support from SuSE 9.2 Pro.
>  
>
Granted, but when creating an account requires a user typing in their 
password three times (XP Workstation, SuSE server, and samba password) 
it's a pain.

>  
>
>>> In other (sort of) related news, I have successfully gotten Windows XP 
>>> to authenticate against PAM using a little program called pGINA.  Also 
>>> supports LDAP, RADIUS, and a few other things I've never heard of.
>>    
>>
>
>Another good presentation topic!
>
>Does it automatically create a local user account?
>  
>
I think that's what the docs said, but I haven't looked at the user 
account list very hard.  Seems to work as advertised, though.  Other 
options I haven't played with include different PAM methods, group 
membership on the Windows box, and drive mappings.

>We tried this before making a Samba PDC (back in the NT4 days) with what
>was probably pGINA's grand-mother.  It worked by doing things like
>setting file permissions via the file/properties/security tab and some
>other things didn't work.
>  
>
So far, I'm down to two sets of credentials (Linux PAM, and samba), and 
I'm working on getting down to one.  Possibilities for that are trying 
Microsoft's Services for Unix (basically, an NFS client) again, or 
Novell Ifolder.  Ifolder is the more appealing choice right now, because 
I doubt SFU is going to work under XP 64-bit edition, which I'm also 
trying to play with.