User authentication in Ubuntu 15.04 systems in an AD environment All HACKD, LLC systems are supposed to be connected to the Microsoft Active Directory domain. However, after implementing Ubuntu 15.04 in the systems that were running on Windows XP, there is a need to ensure interoperability by allowing Ubuntu users to join the AD domain using their credentials. In such instances, the Samba software suite is used to provide AD connectivity and provide stable, secure and fast file sharing and print services to all clients using the SMB/CIFS protocol. In this case, Samba is a critical component for integrating Linux clients in a Windows environment (Samba.org, 2015). However, authentication via Samba is a daunting task since a lot of configurations …show more content…
In this case, the security configuration for each shared directory can be implemented using group policies. Concisely, groups define collections of machines that have the same level of access to a specified network resource, and they offer some extra control to such resources. This technique will allow the system administrator for the CWE systems to configure which users/groups have access to what resources (Help.ubuntu.com, 2015). Handling printing in the CWE systems network Printing in the CWE systems will be handled using Active Directory, whereby shared printers appear the same way as SMB shares. In this case, printers are accessible from the same places where hosts can be seen in different workgroups and domains. If there is a shared printer in the domain, then any client Ubuntu or Windows can use it to print (Dedoimedo.com, 2009). Data encryption in CWE systems Finally, Ubuntu can encrypt either the whole disk or the Home folder during installation. During transmission, data encryption can be encrypted using IPSEC and 802.1x protocols; standards which are already in use within the Active Directory environment (Lucas,