Your opinion needed...

Hi!

I'm trying to research the possibilites of moving our entire
corporation's I.T. infstructure from Windows Server 2003 to Linux.

There are a lot of choices out there, which I'm happy to see - but then
again I don't whole the scene well enough to say what choice is the
best.

We currently utilize the following:
DC, with Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP.
Exchange
IIS & ASP.NET
Terminal Services (trying to get around this)

Could I get your opinion please on what alternatives to use for each
role please, and a good book to learn about that technology?

I'm currently been looking at using the following:

>Active Directory
OpenLDAP. eDirectory and others look to be costly

>DNS
BIND. Seems to have some security concerns - but everyone still seems
to be using it, so I assume that all issues have been resolved. I must
admit though, DJBDNS looks like it's easier to use.

>DHCP
ISC-DHCP just because I don't know what the others have to offer

>Exchange
I don't know! I just want something that provides most of the
functionality that Exchange does, and something that supports Evolution
as a client. Open-Xchange maybe?

>IIS
Apache. Just need a guide or strait-to-the-point tutorial on how to use
it

>ASP.NET
Mono

>Terminal Services
I'm trying to see if I can get around this one, but LTSP looks
interesting. Need a good distro that supports this well though.

So please guys, if I could get any thoughts, opinions, feedback that
would be great. I want our company to fully convert. So far, I'm
thinking of using the OpenSUSE distribution as it seems well supported,
easy to use, and Mono works well. Fedora looks good as well, and had me
curious about their Fedora Directory Services project. If you guys
could help me make a decision on this aspect as well, that would be
great.

I really need all the help I can get.

Thanks in advance, and look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Michael Weichert
Webmaster
Furniture Direct

Oh forgot guys, as for a mail server - I'm thinking Postfix. No
particular reason - just seems to be the most popular, so I figure
there is more documentation. Again, a straight-to-the-point guide or
tutorial would be great.

In comp.os.linux.networking Cyphos <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> Hi!

> I'm trying to research the possibilites of moving our entire
> corporation's I.T. infstructure from Windows Server 2003 to Linux.

> There are a lot of choices out there, which I'm happy to see - but then
> again I don't whole the scene well enough to say what choice is the
> best.

> We currently utilize the following:
> DC, with Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP.
> Exchange
> IIS & ASP.NET
> Terminal Services (trying to get around this)

> Could I get your opinion please on what alternatives to use for each
> role please, and a good book to learn about that technology?

> I'm currently been looking at using the following:

>>Active Directory
> OpenLDAP. eDirectory and others look to be costly

Openldap should be fine.

>>DNS
> BIND. Seems to have some security concerns - but everyone still seems
> to be using it, so I assume that all issues have been resolved. I must

Excuse me, the Internet runs on it. Problems get fixed pretty
soon.

> admit though, DJBDNS looks like it's easier to use.

>>DHCP
> ISC-DHCP just because I don't know what the others have to offer

Rocks.

>>Exchange
> I don't know! I just want something that provides most of the
> functionality that Exchange does, and something that supports Evolution
> as a client. Open-Xchange maybe?

Dunno, what functionality are you talking about?

Can't remember having used any MUA remotely as bad as Outcrap,
it's a real cancer. Even Notes shines beside it.

Phpgroupware or alike might be something to look at.

>>IIS
> Apache. Just need a guide or strait-to-the-point tutorial on how to use
> it

There are numerous good books about apache, pick one.

>>ASP.NET
> Mono

Dunno what this stuff is about, personally prefer perl for active
web content it's highly flexible and thx to CPAN you don't need
to reinvent the wheel in addition never saw anything that does
perform like perl + mod_perl, other swear on php, YMMV.

>>Terminal Services
> I'm trying to see if I can get around this one, but LTSP looks
> interesting. Need a good distro that supports this well though.

Any distro will work with LTSP >=4.0, iirc.

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 239: CPU needs bearings repacked

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Cyphos sent the following transmission through subspace:

> as for a mail server - I'm thinking Postfix. No
> particular reason - just seems to be the most popular,

I started using Postfix because it is easy to configure.

Whatever mailserver package you choose,
_DO NOT_ use sendmail!
Sendmail is hard to configure
and have a large collection of security issiues.

- --
Solbu - http://www.solbu.net
Remove 'ugyldig' for email
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"Solbu" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)

> Whatever mailserver package you choose,
> _DO NOT_ use sendmail!
> Sendmail is hard to configure

Hard for *you* maybe, because you want to use every configuration parameter
available when all you need is the basics.

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 18:37:52 -0800, grenoble wrote:

>> Whatever mailserver package you choose,
>> _DO NOT_ use sendmail!
>> Sendmail is hard to configure

> Hard for *you* maybe, because you want to use every configuration parameter
> available when all you need is the basics.

How could you possibly know that "all he needs is the basics"?

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

Cyphos wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm trying to research the possibilites of moving our entire
> corporation's I.T. infstructure from Windows Server 2003 to Linux.
>
> There are a lot of choices out there, which I'm happy to see - but then
> again I don't whole the scene well enough to say what choice is the
> best.
> ..
> I really need all the help I can get.

Get in touch with Xen (Hardware Virtualization). Modern Linux distros
come with Xen support. This can help a lot in the long term and help
solving any decission pitfall about software. In the next months Sun
will also add Xen support for Solaris so "theorically" it will be
possible to even run Linux and Solaris in the same hardware thaks to
Xen.
- Solaris 10 has some greats
(http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs.jsp,
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflas...0051117.1.html)
and Sun is really good at documentation support
(http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/prod/solaris.10) so it will not hurt to
have to possibility to run it if needed.-

>
> Thanks in advance, and look forward to hearing from you!
>
> Regards,
> Michael Weichert
> Webmaster
> Furniture Direct

> > We currently utilize the following:
> > DC, with Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP.
> > Exchange
> > IIS & ASP.NET
> > Terminal Services (trying to get around this)
>
> > Could I get your opinion please on what alternatives to use for each
> > role please, and a good book to learn about that technology?
>
> > I'm currently been looking at using the following:


> >Active Directory
> > OpenLDAP. eDirectory and others look to be costly

> Openldap should be fine.
Hmm, just came across SAMBA 3. What are the pros/cons between using
SAMBA3 or OpenLDAP?

> >>Exchange
> > I don't know! I just want something that provides most of the
> > functionality that Exchange does, and something that supports Evolution
> > as a client. Open-Xchange maybe?

> Dunno, what functionality are you talking about?
-E-mail
-Calendar
-Tasks
-Contacts
-Public Folders

I want users to be able to have their own e-mail folder, calendar,
tasks, and contacts - and have them available nomatter which computer
they work on. I also want to have a corporate calendar, contact list,
and task list that is available for all users to view.

> Can't remember having used any MUA remotely as bad as Outcrap,
> it's a real cancer. Even Notes shines beside it.

> Phpgroupware or alike might be something to look at.
I'll take a further look at this.

Any good books or tutorials on this:
-SUSE
-SAMBA3
-OpenLDAP
-BIND/DNS
-ISC-DHCP
-LTSP for SUSE
-Postfix

Btw, where does Cyrus fit into the picture?

And further ideas of what to use for groupware?

Thanks again guys!
Mike

In comp.os.linux.networking Cyphos <(E-Mail Removed)>:

[ moving from W2K3 -> Linux ]

> Hmm, just came across SAMBA 3. What are the pros/cons between using
> SAMBA3 or OpenLDAP?

Hm, you are going to move your entire corporate IT from W2K3 to
Linux server and haven't heard about samba?
[..]

>> Dunno, what functionality are you talking about?
> -E-mail
> -Calendar
> -Tasks
> -Contacts
> -Public Folders

> I want users to be able to have their own e-mail folder, calendar,
> tasks, and contacts - and have them available nomatter which computer
> they work on. I also want to have a corporate calendar, contact list,
> and task list that is available for all users to view.

Iirc phpgroupware and others just do that, try a search
(freshmeat.net) for alternatives.
[..]

>> Phpgroupware or alike might be something to look at.
> I'll take a further look at this.

> Any good books or tutorials on this:
> -SUSE
> -SAMBA3
> -OpenLDAP
> -BIND/DNS

O'Reilly DNS/Bind bible is a must have!

> -ISC-DHCP
> -LTSP for SUSE

The docs (www.ltsp.org) are all you need.

> -Postfix

Dunno, use sendmail/exim mostly. In general O'Reilly books are
usually pretty well written.

> Btw, where does Cyrus fit into the picture?

Cyrus is an IMAP server, dunno what you mean with fit into the
picture?

In any case, you want to learn lots about basic stuff, just
installing suse/clicking in yast doesn't make an "Linux expert"
out of anyone. Or hire some competent consultant to do the job
for you in a week or so.

This costs of course a few bucks, but might save lots in the long
run, if you get a well planned transition and a solid new
environment you can work with.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 72: Satan did it

"Dan C" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)

>>> Whatever mailserver package you choose,
>>> _DO NOT_ use sendmail!
>>> Sendmail is hard to configure
>
>> Hard for *you* maybe, because you want to use every configuration
>> parameter available when all you need is the basics.
>
> How could you possibly know that "all he needs is the basics"?

Because it's all that *anybody* needs. Of course, your basics will be
different from someone else's basics, which will be different from an ISP's
basics, but my point is that almost everybody that has problems with
sendmail has far, far more configuration options in the *.mc file than they
need for proper functionality, and we see this in almost *every* *.mc file
that people post in Usenet.

Getting rid of all that clutter (e.g., the config options they don't need)
allows them to focus on the necessary basics that they need, and allows them
to understand the option(s) better.