Question

Using any member of the Windows Server family, I can set up an active directory, and have a single pool of users for a large scale of computers; access can be given / removed for any shared resources in the given domain (including access to client computers, etc).

What similar (and widespread) solutions exist for managing a multi-user, multi-computer environment using Linux? What are their advantages/disadvantages? And how can they interoperate with Windows?

Answer 1

Not sure if this is what you had in mind, but Linux w/Samba can act as a domain controller for Windows desktops. For example, see SAMBA (Domain Controller) Server For Small Workgroups at HowToForge. This works for file/print sharing etc.

For something more akin to Microsoft’s Active Directory, you might check out Red Hat Directory Server:

Red Hat Directory Server is an LDAP-based server that centralizes application settings, user profiles, group data, policies, and access control information into an operating system-independent, network-based registry.

If cost is a concern, there’s a Fedora Directory Server version that’s the community version for free.

Another potential offering would be Sun’s OpenDS project:

OpenDS is an open source community project building a free and comprehensive next generation directory service based on LDAP and DSML. OpenDS is designed to address large deployments, to provide high performance, to be highly extensible, and to be easy to deploy, manage and monitor.