This may not fit here, but I wanted to share my experience with Windows Server

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So I wanted to do something different tonight, so I thought I’d mess around with Windows Server 2016, since that’s what we’re messing around with in my Network Admin class, so I decided to stand up an Active Directory server and join a windows 10 vm to it via Hyper-V …

I’ve come to the conclusion that the sole purpose behind that set up is so IT can big brother the entire company. It’s almost kinda scary how much control it gives you over the client computers.

I need to find a way to pervert this little lab set up with Linux somehow.

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I think it would be fun to use Ubuntu clients because one of their features is to join an Active Directory domain. I’ve never played with it because work gets in the way. They aren’t interested in using Ubuntu as a supported client where I work. I am, but ‘they’ aren’t.

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and this morning I did exactly that. It was stupid simple. I even did it via the command line.

So now I have an ubuntu vm and a windows 10 vm joined to my little homelab. Now time to make them do something.

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That is pretty much what it is used for. There are a ton of Group Policies the company applies to make all the installations uniform and to prevent the average user from shooting themselves in the foot or doing something they really should not be doing at all.

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I recently ran a 2019 server VM on VirtualBox… in “trial mode” as an AD master or domain controller or whatever you call them these days…

Reason - I have to use SSSD on Red Hat and Oracle Linux servers to auth against Active Directory - and it’s a MONUMENTAL pain to get working, when you do get it working - it often fails or dies in the arse with no clue why or how to fix it… it’s HORRIBLE and I LOATHE it (SSSD)…

Anyway - I actually got AD working on 2019, and was able to federate logins to RHEL 8 running on my Brix mini-PC / NUC… But do you think I could repeat that at customer sites? Yeah… NAH!

And you get these absolute KNOBHEADS with job titles like “architect” insisting SSSD should work (when they haven’t a clue about anything Linux or UNIX) and when it doesn’t it’s a showstopper… it’s a flawed mentality for a start - mission critical servers shouldn’t need some third party federated security backend…

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It has been a pain a few times for me too. I got it running when we used CentOS. Then I tried to use the same configuration on Ubuntu, and it wouldn’t work the same. That took a few days to figure out and now both work for me. It’s more painful that it should be that’s for sure.

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