It is possible to install Active Directory authentication in Ubuntu 8.04 and later. The Likewise Open packages accomplish this task, and it is actually pretty easy.
Just a note – when installing Ubuntu, do not add a user named “administrator” as I did. This makes it impossible to join the Ubuntu workstation to the domain using the “administrator” active directory user – but you can use a different Domain Administrator username and password.
The steps to follow:
- sudo apt-get install likewise-open
- sudo domainjoin-cli join fdqn.yourdomainserver Administrator
- sudo update-rc.d likewise-open defaults
- sudo /etc/init.d/likewise-open start
As a side note – you should also consider adding the following code to make it so that users do not have to login with DOMAIN\username on the ubuntu login screen. You can do this by changing /etc/samba/lwiauthd.conf and adding this line:
winbind use default domain = yes
Also, another helpful tidbit of information is getting your Ubuntu machine to resolve netbios domain names. You can do this by adding missing entries to the following lines in /etc/nsswitch.conf:
passwd: compat winbind lwidentity
group: compat winbind lwidentity
shadow: compat winbind
hosts: files dns winbind
If you receive an “ERROR” message when you try to login to Ubuntu, it could be because the likewise-open service isn’t running. Running “update-rc.d likewise-open defaults” should start it but troubleshoot this script to make sure it is indeed running on boot.
For More Information:
Official Likewise-open page on Ubuntu
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