[KLUG Members] LDAP & AD?

[Bruce Smith]

> > Our Engineering department is looking to buy a package which claims to
> > _require_ Active Directory.  They say it will NOT WORK with any other
> > LDAP server, commercial or open source.  They come right out and say
> > that it will "not work", as opposed to "it's not supported with any
> > other LDAP server".>
> > Are they feeding me a line of crap, or are there really features that AD
> > has, which no other LDAP server can do?
> 
> AD implements a bunch of M$-RPC stuff that is outside of LDAP (AD isn't really
> an LDAP server in the strictest sense).  So it is possible that their 
> statement
> is true.  Samba4 however implements pretty close to everything,  Samba4 
> contains its own DSA (which like AD, is an LDAP server 'plus').

What's the state of Samba4 now?  Usable?

I've looked at a few other LDAP servers, even thought they claim none
work with their package.  

FWIW, other LDAP servers that I would consider:
  Redhat Directory Server (formally Netscape?)
  Novell's
  MAC OS-X Server's

Other ones I looked at and would rather run AD:
  IBM (DB2 backend)
  Sun (no desire to add another Unix)

 - BS