[CS-FSLUG] Linux/Samba for a church office

[jrichie@bible.edu]

I have 109 home directories and 22 group directories being shared via
Samba 3 with an AD authentication backend. This works very well and,
near flawless. I don't have need for many higher features allowing users
to govern their own access rights to files so I simply control that by
hand and limit the extent of directory use. Directories are never shared
out to multiple groups or a user and a group. The one exception is our
"Campus Drive" available to everyone. I then setup drives for dept. by
request and for user on creation of user account. That way, everything
stays nearly identical across dept. and permission issues are easy to
troubleshoot.

Don't let them tell you how to set it up. Tell them what they have
available. I've done it both ways and the other is both insecure and a
management nightmare as growth of use occurs.

Your authentication backend should be a trivial aspect as I'm assuming
you already have one to auth to.

You might consider CODA or AFS. I've been hearing some great things
about them but haven't tried either out yet. I'm inclined to test CODA
when I get some time simply for the flexibility it suppossedly gives. It
may very well add complications at the same time. SAMBA will probably
really do a nice job for you to start with.

JSR/

On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 07:34 -0500, Scott St. John wrote:
> Hi Everyone!
> 
> I am working on a project to install a central server and back up system at my
> church.  Currently about 20 users and there is a real need for file/folder
> access to protect data.
> 
> I know about the Windows choices already and I use Linux and FreeBSD in an ISP
> environment, but not in an office environment where I need to control login,
> file and folder access and backups.
> 
> My question is:  is anyone using something other than Windows that people are
> using in an office environment and what is your experience.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> -Scott
> 
> 
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