Samba4, the in-development Next Generation version of Samba, the free CIFS/SMB implementation for UNIX-like systems now includes Active Directory services.

While the current versions of Samba already support Windows NT style Primary Domain Controllers, the lack of Active Directory services has meant that Windows Networks running recent versions of Windows can not be administered effectively with Samba servers. Samba4’s Active Directory support changes all that.

The most surprising part of the Active Directory implementation is that even in it’s Alpha stage, the support is not minimal-not-fully-implemented, but a complete 100% working implementation. You’ll understand that when they say the best way of administration of the servers is to use DSA.MSC and GPEDIT.MSC running on a Windows client attached to the Active Directory, they mean business. They actually use the official Microsoft-supplied tools for remote administration of Windows Server 2003 R2, unmodified, without any functionality lost, to administrate over Samba4’s Active Directory. And yes, Samba4 fully supports Group Policy over Active Directory as well.

Samba4 also supports Roaming Profiles. Roaming Profiles are user profiles which are stored on the server, so that the user can log in from any machine and have all his personal settings, documents and desktop icons intact. However, Roaming Profiles are not cross-platform, meaning Windows Roaming Profiles cannot be used as Remote Home Folders in Linux clients.

Active Directory authentication has been supported under Linux for a long time, using PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules). The addition of AD support means that the complete portfolio of Windows Server services has been replicated on Free Software platforms, and that complete Windows Networks can be run using GNU/Linux servers, without paying Microsoft ludicrous amounts for Client Access Licenses for Windows Server Operating Systems. The only service now so far missing, but which can be replicated easily, is Remote Installation Services or RIS.

Currently, Samba4 is in Alpha. The source can be checked out from Git and compiled.