7 thoughts on - Can I Configure CentOS 8.1 1911 As An Active Directory Domain Controller Like A Windows Server?

• I would start here:
  https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/deploying_different_types_of_servers/assembly_using-samba-as-a-server_deploying-different-types-of-servers

  HIH, Gianluca

• Hi,

  Thank you for your prompt reply.

  The guide which you have shared looks very detailed.

  I have also found another guide at samba.org but not very sure whether it is good.

  Title: Setting up Samba as an Active Directory Domain Controller

  Link: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_Samba_as_an_Active_Directory_Domain_Controller

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• Oh dear,

  The Red Hat guide says:

  “Red Hat does not support running Samba as an AD domain controller (DC).”

  If RHEL 8.1 does not support running Samba as an AD domain controller
  (DC), will CentOS 8.1 support running Samba as an AD domain controller
  (DC)?

• Take note that on the link I provided there is the statement that it is not supported (on Red Hat) with the role of AD DC. I don’t know if it is more a limitation for support effort by Red Hat or at all, also because here you can find a note for Ubuntu where it states it does support that role on Samba4:
  https://www.tecmint.com/install-samba4-active-directory-ubuntu/

  So if you are “forced” to use CentOS you can try to inter-mix the information provided by the two links and see if it works. Gianluca

• Thanks for the Ubuntu guide!

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• This guide says to use Samba built against Heimdal. The Samba in RHEL/CentOS is built against MIT Kerberos, so you’d need to rebuild Samba. There is experimental support for using MIT Kerberos as a DC, if you’re willing to risk it.

  Also, with a quick glance over the CentOS8 spec file for Samba, it builds samba without the Domain Controller configure flag by default.
  (Look at the with_dc RPM spec variable here:
  https://git.CentOS.org/rpms/samba/blob/c8/f/SPECS/samba.spec )

  It looks like if you want to run an AD DC on CentOS, you’ll need to find some other packages or maintain them yourself. Good luck.

• On CentOS 7 I use the above link which also should work on 8. If you want to build rpms, there is also https://github.com/nkadel?tab=repositories

  I am not aware of any pre-build rpms for a DC on CentOS 8 but there are some for CentOS 7 but I have never used them.

  Red Hat has stated they will not support a Samba DC on RHEL therefore it will not be supported on Samba.

  I would also suggest subscribing to the Samba users mailing list @ samba.org as the people there are very good at supporting Samba as a DC.

  My one warning to you is unless you wish to inflict large amounts of pain on yourself do not build Samba using MIT Kerberos. It is unmaintained and unsupported by the Samba Team or anyone else that I am aware of.

  Regards,