Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows 2003
KT
Windows 2003 Ent.
Our questions to RHEL community is...OUT of the box (using Red Hat
GUI)...can I...
(1) Have a domain type environment where my users log into any machine and
be authenticated to the domain (RHEL)? GUI management with what tool?
(2) Have a GUI for managing the users? Using what?
(3) Have automated way to build RHEL Workstations? Using what?
(4) Samba and mail - do they have a GUI tool to manage them also?
(5) Is there any benchmark on RHEL4 vs. Windows 2003?
I ask about the GUI Management feature because we are NO experts, but we are
no beginners either; however, for ease of management of the systems and
handing off to new hires - simplified MANAGEMENT tools are a must (the
Webmins are not exactly gonna cut it). This is a requirement by the company
management, please do NOT lecture us on CLI vs GUI. We want an objective
response for management - not religious war.
Thank you kindly.
Kurt von Finck
> We have three locations in 3 parts of the world, we are evaluating RHEL4 and
> Windows 2003 Ent.
>
> Our questions to RHEL community is...OUT of the box (using Red Hat
> GUI)...can I...
Comments inline.
> (1) Have a domain type environment where my users log into any machine and
> be authenticated to the domain (RHEL)? GUI management with what tool?
LDAP authentication does this. There are a couple LDAP GUI
front-ends, GQ being the one that first springs to mind.
> (2) Have a GUI for managing the users? Using what?
RHEL has user management GUIs for both GNOME and KDE built-in.
> (3) Have automated way to build RHEL Workstations? Using what?
Netboot via PXE and Kickstart. GIYF.
> (4) Samba and mail - do they have a GUI tool to manage them also?
Most mail daemons work off the expectation that any mail user is
also a regular Unix user. Creating an account in Unix will create
the mail user.
> (5) Is there any benchmark on RHEL4 vs. Windows 2003?
Sure. Viruses and trojans and backdoors and exploits for Windows
outnumber such things for Linux by 10 to 1. Easily. Want other
benchmarks? Be specific. :)
> I ask about the GUI Management feature because we are NO experts, but we are
> no beginners either; however, for ease of management of the systems and
> handing off to new hires - simplified MANAGEMENT tools are a must (the
> Webmins are not exactly gonna cut it). This is a requirement by the company
> management, please do NOT lecture us on CLI vs GUI. We want an objective
> response for management - not religious war.
Ummm ... it's not a religious war. It's common sense.
A windowing system eats up valuable physical resources that, in the
end, are unnecessary. Why dedicate RAM and CPU cycles to a GUI that
only gets seen once per week? Makes no sense.
It also, IMO, makes no sense to have administrators that are scared
of anything that's not pointy-clicky in charge of production
resources. That's like letting a mechanic with a fear of opening a
hood work on your car.
If you want a stable, fault-tolerant, and secure network then be
prepared to hire sysadmins. Real, honest-to-Pete sysadmins. Not Gene
from accounting that got an MCSE by paying some money and taking a test.
Management can be (and in my experience, often is) wrong about
technology decisions. It's OK to tell them so, if it's done in a
constructive and understanding way. This is one of the issues where
they are wrong. Sysadmins that know what they're doing will not
deploy Windows to mission critical roles. They also do not depend on
GUIs to extrude what can be done from a CLI.
Case in point. I can restart Apache via ssh and a shell from
anywhere in seconds, with total security. A GUI is a pointless,
needless waste.
I'm not ranting. Really. Unix works best for sysadmins from the
command line. If you want to use Unix or a Unix-like OS, learn to
use it the way it's meant to be used. If not, then deploy Windows,
pay your license fees, sleep poorly because of security fears, try
to keep up with security updates and hope that they don't break
things, spend 5 minutes using a GUI tool to connect to a remote
machine, etc etc etc.
You tell me, what's the bigger drain on company resources?
./k
Gregory Toomey
If you're doing remote work you dont want a gui.
I've been running a Redhat 9 server in Texas for years & I live in
Australia.
Having said that Redhat has plenty of tools to automate the standard server
stuff. There are tools like webmin or cpanel that will give to a web
interface for most of what you want.
I use IMAP/dovecot/squirrelmail for email so I see the same email using the
evolution email client or using a web interface.
You're a multinational so you can afford a professional to look after this
for you.
gtoomey
General Schvantzkoph
> I ask about the GUI Management feature because we are NO experts, but we are
> no beginners either; however, for ease of management of the systems and
> handing off to new hires - simplified MANAGEMENT tools are a must (the
> Webmins are not exactly gonna cut it). This is a requirement by the company
> management, please do NOT lecture us on CLI vs GUI. We want an objective
> response for management - not religious war.
>
> Thank you kindly.
What don't you like about Webmin? It's very easy to use and allows you to
adminster any machine from anywhere using SSL.