Re: [Nolug] Windows & Linux

SFU is free and comes with Windows 2003 R2 on the CD and can be
installed via Add/Remove Programs->Windows Components. It's roughly
equivalent to Cygwin and it works well. To be honest, there isn't
anything you can do with Cygwin that you can't really do with SFU and
vice-versa.

Kevin mentioned that SFU is from 2004 and not supported. This isn't
correct. I'm thinking he means Windows Subsystem for UNIX Applications
(SUA) is older and not supported, which is correct. SFU is packaged with
Windows 2003 R2 and should be considered the next version of SUA.

I will say though that using the NFS server takes a little work. It can
be tied into AD and you can map Windows and UNIX usernames (which is
common if you are in a mixed environment where different people
provision accounts), but the mapping process is a tad tricky sometimes.
Also, the SFU NFS server doesn't give you very good performance. Windows
2003 R2 CIFS performance is insanely good. NFS performance is just plain
bad. Not too hard to figure out that one.

Anyway, here is what you can do generally do with SFU:

o Windows 2003 R2 comes with the AD UNIX schema changes out-of-the-box.
That means you can support your UNIX envrionment more easily and with
fewer changes than pre-Windows 2003 R2. (Think pam_ldap.)

o You can install an NIS server so that your AD is also your NIS if you
don't want to go the LDAP route.

o You can run an NFS server.

o You can run a name mapper if your UNIX and AD usernames differ.

o You get the usual UNIX command line tools.

o You can run an X server, but it doesn't come with SFU. There are some
good free ones though.

o You can run GCC, etc., and you can compile and run UNIX programs
directly on Windows (no emulation). Windows has always had a POSIX
layer, but library support was weak in the past in my opinion. SFU
improves on that.

o You can run password change agents on your UNIX and Linux boxes so
that they password sync with AD (uni- or bi-directionally).

For real UNIX and Linux integration, we've been using Centrify (our
partner) instead of SFU or even Samba generally, but SFU gives you some
nice tools.

--
Dustin Puryear
President and Sr. Consultant
Puryear Information Technology, LLC
225-706-8414 x112
http://www.puryear-it.com
Author, "Best Practices for Managing Linux and UNIX Servers"
  http://www.puryear-it.com/pubs/linux-unix-best-practices/
John Souvestre wrote:
> Hi all.
> 
> Has anyone looked at Microsoft's Windows Services for Unix?  It's free.
> 
>     http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463212.aspx
> 
> I just happened to stumble across mention of it when researching something else.
> 
> John
> 
>    John Souvestre - Integrated Data Systems - (504) 355-0609
> 
> 
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