Using Centrify DirectControl to Enable Automounted UNIX Home Directories

Published: 6 December 2005

The goal of this Application Note is to build a solution solving the scenario that requires mapping UNIX users' home directories to a remote shared directory on a Windows server. Additionally, this solution provides for a central identity management system, based on Active Directory, which supports the storage of UNIX and Windows attributes for each user. Access to the shared files needs to be controlled via the user and group credentials that are stored in Active Directory.

This Application Note was tested using Solaris 8 and Red Hat Linux 9 as the UNIX client system. Implementation differences are noted in this document. While these steps should be applicable to other UNIX or Linux systems, the specific differences are not included in this document and therefore the steps should be used as a guideline only.

To implement this solution, you will need:

• Centrify DirectControl, which provides Active Directory-based identity, access control and policy services for UNIX, Linux and Mac systems. DirectControl also includes components to service NIS requests from UNIX clients - including serving up information in centrally stored NIS maps.
• Microsoft's SFU product or Windows Server 2003 R2, which provide Windows-to-UNIX interoperability. One key component used in this solution is the Microsoft NFS Server.

Related Application Notes

• Using DirectControl with Microsoft NFS Server
• Using the DirectControl NIS Service