Thinking Inside the Box: Embedded Active Directory / Storage Appliances Based on Samba | SNIA

Abstract

In many SOHO setups, a central storage server or NAS device is already in use. Existing Open Source software makes it very easy to also move the Active Directory domain controller to the same machine, providing easy-to-use user management and file/print services to SOHO customers. This talk will describe a proof-of-concept implementation of an embedded Active Directory DC and SMB/CIFS file/print server for SOHO setups that can be administrated using a web interface or existing AD management tools. While the proof-of-concept implementation is limited to about a dozen clients, the same system is useable on more powerful hardware for bigger networks.

Learning Objectives

Using Samba to provide AD DC and file/print services
Scaling Samba down to embedded system constraints
Using a web interface to administer Samba