[H-GEN] How to do single signon and filesharing across platforms at home?

[Ben Fowler]

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Hi All,

At home, I have PCs running Windows XP and Linux, specifically, Debian
unstable (and maybe a Mac on the way), as client machines.  I also have
a Sun Ultra 10 running Solaris acting as a file server.

What I want to do is this: I want to maintain a single set of accounts
for all clients (and for shells on the server box).  I also want to
share home directories and a public filesystem with group-based file
permissions off the server.  I also anticipate doing some printer
sharing at some point too.

Flexible authentication would be a big plus.  If I choose to use
one-time passwords or crypto-cards in the future, I'd like to be able to
do that.

I'm quite comfortable with compiling and configuring software, so
hand-holding and reading documentation is not what I need here.  What I
_do_ need help with, is choosing a set of components that are proven to
work together with minimum fuss.

Here are the options I'm aware of:

* File sharing
   - Samba
   - NFS
* Single signon, account management
   - Samba with NTLM authentication
   - Samba, bleeding-edge with Active Directory support
   - LDAP (although I don't know about Windows client support)
   - NIS/NIS+
   - Kerberos (?)
   (using something that allows me to completely centralise accounts on
the network would be nice)

Does the HUMBUG Collective have any hot tips on what
software/technologies/etc I ought to be considering to set all this up? 
Any and all ideas are welcome.

-regards,

Ben.

-- 
Ben Fowler <fowlerb at optushome.com.au>


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