Ubuntu connection to Free NAS via Acitve Directory in a Windows Server Machine

[aproger]

Hi,

Would it be possible to setup a NAS machine that I could connect a Ubuntu user to? Would like to use Windows AD from my main server to control user access. I haven't been able to figure out how to get a Ubuntu machine to connect to a windows server. It seems like this would be possible with Free NAS properly configured? Would the Ubuntu user be able to see shares on the Windows Server with this connection?

Apologies if I am not using the correct technical terms to describe the issue. New to servers and NAS hardware, little to no experience with Ubuntu (Linux) but my analytical user runs a lot of programs that are Linux based.

Thanks. T.

 

[Yorick]

So you want to access a share on a Windows server from Ubuntu, and that Windows server also has AD running.

FreeNAS can serve shares - over NFS or CIFS or a number of methods - but they’d be shares of data held on the FreeNAS server. So if your question is “can an Ubuntu user access a share on FreeNAS”, then yes. It doesn’t get you any closer to accessing a share on that Windows server though.

This should help for accessing a share on Windows from Ubuntu: http://lifeofageekadmin.com/mount-windows-share-ubuntu-16-0-4-lts/

Alternatively, you might want to have a setup where your Linux user logs in with a Windows domain login, not with their local user. For that, see this article: https://www.linux.com/learn/how-join-ubuntu-machine-windows-domain

 

[rvassar]

I suspect you haven't quite explained the scenario. @Yorick's suggestions are quite good for hosting Linux in your Lab or a nearby datacenter. In this scenario, provided you have enough memory, you could even host Linux as a Bhyve VM on your FreeNAS. However... Usually the first stop to fulfill a technical user's need for Linux, is to Virtualize it on the existing desktop / laptop solution. Oracle's Virtualbox is almost free, and works quite well.