Automated SAMBA +LDAP / News: Recent posts

During the next few weeks I will be consumed with a move from Saint Louis to Chicago, so please don't expect to see any updates until mid June.

After I have gotten settled, I will begin the process of building the system on FreeBSD 7.2 (and bring back support for the i386 platform).

I have not taken much time out for the administration pages up to this point, but after I have completed the next round of I will shift my focus onto adding the rest of the pages. ... read more

I have posted the ISO for the interim release dubbed "WGS" (for Workgroup Server).

This version has SAMBA +OpenLDAP (+ WWW) like all of the previous releases, but it also includes DHCP Server, DNS Server (w/Dynamic updates from DHCP), IMAP/POP3/SMTP servers.

I have configured the mail servers to authenticate from the OpenLDAP database using the existing Samba information. This means that if you have added a user for Samba, you have added a user for email without any further configuraton.... read more

I am in the process of building the next version which will include Dovecot (From Ports w/LDAP Support), Postfix (From Ports w/LDAP support) & Roundcube (Webmail) to handle email on the server.

Additional changes include lighttpd moving to LDAP-Auth instead of the .htpasswd mechanism I am currently using. This also required building the package from ports.

To recap, we currently have:

Samba w/OpenLDAP backend (w/SSL Certs genterated during install)
ISC-DHCP Server
BIND-DNS Server (w/DYN-Updates from DHCP)
Lighttpd (w/SSL Certs genterated during install)
PHP5
OpenSSL
OpenSSH-Portable
"Basic" user/group management from WebGUI

Today with the help of Johan Hendriks, I added the DHCP server with Dynamic DNS updates to the mix.

The default range of IP's created during setup is from X.X.X.25 to X.X.X.250.

As a side note: In v0.93 I added a script used by the web admin pages that updates the Samba usermap file when a user is added or deleted from the system.

This allows a user to log in via their "Display Name" or "username".
i.e. Both "Adam Sweeney" or "adamsweeney" are valid usernames to the system. ... read more

I am currently uploading the latest release (0.91) which includes basic support for adding/deleting/modifying users from the web interface.

Be sure to open httpS://<yourIP>:8443 to access the admin tools.

I have written to scripts for backing up your LDAP user database to an LDIF file
and for restoring a backup to a new install.

These utilities are included on the CD in the /$arch/cdsetup_tools/ directory.
They are also copied to your /root/ directory during installation.

After several revisions and a lot of changes, I finally have the installer script worked out to the point that I feel it is ready to roll.

If you can install FreeBSD 7.1 (Minimal Installation), mount a CDROM, enter a simple command to start the script, hit okay a few times and type a password, you can now build yourself a Samba PDC with an OpenLDAP backend in a matter of a few minutes.

Due to the fact that things were getting out of control managing separate versions for AMD64 and i386, I have combined both versions onto a single CDROM for all future versions.

I am in the process of SYNC'ing the SVN tree now.

The first revision of the "UNIFIED INSTALLER CD" will be posted tonight (04/08/2009).

Also, some versions of the CDROM ISO files were corrupted. These have been recreated and uploaded (Rev 3 and Rev 5).... read more

I have been doing all of my testing of the script up to this point on the "mini-server" that has a Intel Atom 1.6Ghz based board in it.

Today in my efforts to validate the script on multiple machines, I ran it on an HP Pavilion (P4 3.0Ghz, 1Gb DDR, 250Gb SATA) and it completed in under 4 minutes.

Start to finish, bare metal to first SMB connection was 12 minutes including the installation of the OS (EVERYTHING was installed via FTP on a 20Mbit internet connection).... read more

FreeBSD 7.1 BETA has hit the FTP servers and I am in the process of testing the script against it now. I will keep you updated!!!

The Automated SAMBA +LDAP project takes a "Minimal" installation of FreeBSD 7.1/AMD64 and installs and configures the entire system with minimal user interaction and leaves you with a fully functional Samba PDC with a LDAP back-end.

I am currently working on the web GUI for adding users. Until I have finished that, you must use smbldap-useradd from the command line to add users (see SVN for example script).... read more