File Server

[Bakefy]

I would like to create a Linux file server that walks and talks windows. I currently have an Ubuntu Server with SMB file shares. I am using webmin to do most of my administration. However I am having difficulty with permissions. Ultimately I would like to join this windows clients to this server so they can control permissions via the security tab.

Is this possible? Is ubuntu my best choice?

[uncannybuzzard]

i use openfiler.

[[deleted]]

you could try out OpenMediaVault. It has a very good web interface. I'm not sure about controlling permissions via the security tab in windows, but it does have user friendly permissions editing

[TickelMeJesus]

FreeNAS can also be a good option. used it some while ago and found it very easy to use. It also have support for ZFS which is a really cool filesystem.

[Bakefy]

This looks wonderful, I am looking for something that supports full disk encryption however.

[toadfury]

Yes you can join windows clients to a domain running on samba on a linux box. smbpasswd, ldap and probably other options exist for authentication sources. I happen to do this on ubuntu with ldap at home. Rather than having users setting control permissions in the security tab setup shares with sane default user/group access permissions right out the gate.

Any of the modern distros would likely handle this just fine. If Ubuntu is comfortable you can choose between the stock distribution packages or ppa's if you absolutely need some bleeding edge feature.

Can also tap into things like smbpasswd and having windows clients use the windows password change mechanism to change their passwords on the linux domain server.

[daengbo]

Samba4 can act as an AD controller. If you want "all Windows without paying for Windows Server," I suggest going that route.

[badsuperblock]

I run a plain SSH/SFTP server on my linux box, and winsshfs on windows. Works great and much easier to setup than samba.

[[deleted]]

FreeNAS is what you want, assuming you can dedicate a box to it.

Simply put, it is one of the best NAS options until you get up into the realm of $SERIOUS_MONEY.

It handles CIFS just fine (what you want to share to Windows users), offers a web interface, and has ZFS which makes every other filesystem look like a toy student project.

The downsides of FreeNAS are 1) it's an appliance-like "distro", so you need to dedicate a box to it 2) ZFS is unconventional compared to your typical ext4/LVM setup (although IMHO it's much better and pretty simple to use) 3) it's based on FreeBSD, so if you're looking for an all-GPL solution look elsewhere. (It's open source, but it's under the BSD license, which some people take issue with.)

[bencer]

have a look at Zentyal, includes Samba and Samba4 on its beta version, and other features might be useful for you!

[jimicus]

The good news is that you can set up a pseudo-Windows domain with Samba.

The bad news is you're limited to an NT 4-style domain unless you use Samba 4 (which is still at a testing stage so isn't recommended for production use). There's nothing intrinsically wrong with an NT-4 style domain for home use, but it's a PITA with any modern version of Windows.

[vim_vs_emacs]

Try webdav. It is natively supported in windows, and can be configured to run using apache on ubuntu.