Tutorial : Building Active Directory Server, Domain Controller & File Server with Excellent Samba 4 Appliance-Part 1

One of an interesting project to be implemented-especially for the System Administrator who still handles Windows Server and Client-are Samba 4. What is Samba 4?

Samba4 is a massive reworking of the Samba 3 implementation, with a goal of providing full Active Directory, domain controller and file server support for all current Windows clients.

Samba 4 deployment process requires some dependency files on compilation stage. To by pass this problem and ensure there are no difficulties in the compilation, I made a SUSE Studio Appliance, based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP2 called : Excellent Samba 4 Appliance

Excellent Samba 4 Appliance is SLES 11 SP2 remastering appliance in minimal system and contains all of requirement for Samba 4 deployment. Excellent Samba 4 Appliance available on  LiveCD (ISO), ISO Installer (Preload ISO) and Virtual Image (VMDK, VHD & OVF).
Release notes for version 0.9.2 :

1. Using Samba 4 RC2 binary (plan to update it with RC3 or stable version)
2. Automated installation for Samba 4 RC2 (installed into /usr/local/samba)
3. Add Windows XP & Windows 7 Server Administrative Tools on /srv/www/htdocs
4. Add auto configure script dcpromo.excellent on /srv/v/ (currently in Bahasa Indonesia)
   1.cd /srv/v

   2../dcpromo.excellent

   What the script do :

   • Ask for parameter like IP, domain, realm, password, etc.
   • Create default DNS records
   • Provisioning Samba 4 as Active Directory server
   • Configure Dynamic DNS Server Configuration
   • Configure Kerberos
   • Configure NTP Server
   • Configure Winbind

HOW TO

1. Download Samba 4 Appliance from the following link :http://susestudio.com/a/veav1Y/excellent-samba4-appliance
2. Choose an appropriate download type. I’m using VirtualBox as simulator on this article so I choose : Virtual Image-OVF
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3. Run the VirtualBox
4. Choose menu File | Import Appliance
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5. Click Import
6. After the import process completed, run the VM and follow the wizard process. Use user name : root and password : opensuse for login credentials
7. Configure network by typing the following command on konsole : yast lan
8. Configure network by using YAST network wizard (see the picture below as an example) :
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9. Press ALT+I (Edit) to configure network IP Address and then pres  ALT+N to close the windows and back to the primary windows configuration.
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10. Press ALT+S to move into  DNS Server tab and modify the setting in accordance with the desired configuration. Remember, I’m using the IP address as primary NS (NS1) because I’ll be setting up local DNS Server.
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11. Press ALT+U to set yourRouting/Gateway. Fill in gateway IP address or router IP address, in my sample is my ADSL modem : 192.168.1.1
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12. Press ALT+O to pick OK button and back into the konsole
13. Test the network connection by using ping command

Since version 0.9.2, Samba 4 binary has been automatically compiled while building the appliance, so you do not need to manually compile it. All Samba 4 binary has been successfully installed into /usr/local/samba. On next article, I’ll be covering how to provisioning Samba 4 as Active Directory, create Samba 4 service script for easier Samba 4 management and configure Dynamic DNS Server.