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2 general questions: what to use as central password server and shared calendar?

Hi,

I'm trying to replicate as far as I can a copy of the old windows NT domain and exchange server environment for a lot cheaper in Linux

I know I can use LDAP for a centrally managed address book. What can I use for a central managed but user editable calender for the enterprise?

In NT if a user changed his password it would change for all servers (the domain logon) and other things like his mailbox password. What can I use in Linux to replicate this functionality?

Pros and Cons for each system please? Any Ideas?

Bendecko

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ahoffmann

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bendecko

ASKER

I've just read that Samsung bought out HP's Openmail.

Do you know anything about it? It seems to do everything exchange/outlook does but it means i can let everyone keep using outlook?

ahoffmann

sorry, no idea bout HP Openmail
But I'm interested too.

bendecko

ASKER

Thanks very much. LDAP it is.

One more thing in Windows NT there is the concept of 'ownership' and you can only take ownership of files etc not give it away. This means administrators etc have to be accountable. Can you do this in Unix?

I'll let you know about openmail when I get a spare box to try it out on. Looks pretty cool and something I might convince people to go for if I can utilise all the groupware features of outlook without exchange!

Regards

Ben

ahoffmann

'ownerchip' on NTFS is something where M$ suggest security again, there there is no security implemeted.
It's exactly the same as it is in UNIX since roughly 30 years:
a file can be owned by a user, and no others can change it, except the owner itself
In UNIX it is like:
chmod 700 file && chown user file
The ownly difference to NTFS' 'ownerchip' is, that NT admins need to take ownerchip before they can read the file (which makes things just more complicated than needed), while on UNIX root can read it right away

bendecko

ASKER

hi,

in NT the administrator cannot then set the ownership of the file back to the original owner.

in Linux he can? or not even have to worry as he's logged on as root can do anything?

that means he can look at things he maybe shouldn't have and no one is to know?

ben

ahoffmann

I'm not shure if the administrator can give away ownership (it's tooo long when I abandoned NT), probably admin must give full access, and then the owner can take ownership again. But I know that there exist a implementation of UNIX's chown for NT (at least from cygnus).

And yes, on UNIX (as on NT) root can do anything.
IMHO, anything else does not make sence, or makes the system unusable in some situations. If a user does not like that others (even admins) read their files, then they should encrypt them, that's much more safe (even against attacks).