Basics
Samba Active Directory
Can you run Active Directory without Windows Server?
Yes. Samba can provide an Active Directory domain on Linux that Windows PCs join like a Windows Server. User management, group policies and DNS work as usual, without Windows Server or CAL licences.
Samba is a long-running open source project. As a domain controller it speaks Kerberos, LDAP, DNS and group policy distribution, managed with the usual Microsoft tools.
Limits apply to products that strictly require Windows Server, such as on-prem Exchange. An assessment before switching clarifies which applications are affected.
For resilience at least two domain controllers run and replicate with each other.
All terms in the knowledge base
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