domain controller in the cloud for small office?
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@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
My friend who is a tech director for my kids school is having his budget slashed by a superintendent who doesn't think that much of technology. About 750 kids in the district (rural area) he has about 400-500 machines to manage. His budget is $20,000 for the year. So we are moving him to all open source. Moving from Novell eDirectory to a Samba 4 domain. Doing anything and everything to save him money.
So that means he quit right? $20K won't even cover his salary, so I'm guessing that means he's looking for a new job.
Not including his salary of course. All he has is $20,000 to cover any repairs or new purchases.
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@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
My friend who is a tech director for my kids school is having his budget slashed by a superintendent who doesn't think that much of technology. About 750 kids in the district (rural area) he has about 400-500 machines to manage. His budget is $20,000 for the year. So we are moving him to all open source. Moving from Novell eDirectory to a Samba 4 domain. Doing anything and everything to save him money.
In all seriousness, $20K may or may not be enough for this particular year - we really don't know. One thing we do know, that would be enough to replace only about 20 PCs (30 if you scrimp), so let's hope for his sake that he doesn't need to replace much equipment.
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@mike-davis We are doing his on-site, but you would most likely want to use a VPN or like @Dashrender said ZeroTier would be an option.
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@mike-davis said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
That said, Passwords being the main thing that @Mike-Davis asked about, that's handled through O365 itself, no GPOs needed.
This is true. o365 admin center lets you create password change policies. If the Azure AD will let me create shares based on o365 usernames, I'll be all set.
They aren't shares in the normal sense. You'll have SharePoint sites and ODfB sharing.
I don't believe that Windows Server 2016 can participate with Azure AD (though I could be wrong, heck probably am) so you can't (as far as I know) setup shares on a local server that would then map to a user.
Remember, LANLess is the desire now.. so no local servers unless absolutely required - use things like ODfB or Nextcloud.
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@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
My friend who is a tech director for my kids school is having his budget slashed by a superintendent who doesn't think that much of technology. About 750 kids in the district (rural area) he has about 400-500 machines to manage. His budget is $20,000 for the year. So we are moving him to all open source. Moving from Novell eDirectory to a Samba 4 domain. Doing anything and everything to save him money.
In all seriousness, $20K may or may not be enough for this particular year - we really don't know. One thing we do know, that would be enough to replace only about 20 PCs (30 if you scrimp), so let's hope for his sake that he doesn't need to replace much equipment.
I volunteer and help him. It is not enough money. All of his machines are old, some are 10+ years old. He prays they last because all he can do is repair what breaks.
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@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
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@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
When was the last time Novell eDirectory was updated? He might simply be trying to modernize.
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@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
When was the last time Novell eDirectory was updated? He might simply be trying to modernize.
True. . I was just asking though.
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@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
No, Windows 10 will join an Azure AD just like it joins a local onsite AD. Then any users in your O365 system can log into the computers.
I'll have to find a spare Windows 10 box so I can run through the "Join this device to Azure Active Directory" wizard. I have a spare Windows 7 box on my bench, but Windows 7 is not supported.
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I found this chart of features:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/active-directory/It looks like:
MDM auto-enrollment, Self-Service Bitlocker recovery, Additional local administrators to Windows 10 devices via Azure AD Join, Enterprise State RoamingIs available in the Premium P1 and up. $6/user /month
At that price the $26/month domain controller running on Vultr looks like a pretty good deal. Combine it with ZeroTier and I should be all set.
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@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
His renewal is coming up soon, that is why we are replacing it.
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@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
His renewal is coming up soon, that is why we are replacing it.
Ah.
As to the next question, why aren't you implementing NethServer and Samba 4 from there?
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@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
His renewal is coming up soon, that is why we are replacing it.
Ah.
As to the next question, why aren't you implementing NethServer and Samba 4 from there?
Because Samba 4 domain on a CentOS server without all the extra NethServer stuff is slimmer and runs bettter. Also it is just as easy to administer.
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@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dustinb3403 said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler Why are you ripping out what is in place, isn't he licensed for it all currently?
I get his budget is being cut, but that doesn't effect what the school district already has deployed.
His renewal is coming up soon, that is why we are replacing it.
Ah.
As to the next question, why aren't you implementing NethServer and Samba 4 from there?
Because Samba 4 domain on a CentOS server without all the extra NethServer stuff is slimmer and runs bettter. Also it is just as easy to administer.
Makes sense, just confirming.
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@mike-davis said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
You get baseline AzureAD by using O365 (anything other than hosted Exchange only). This is what I use at one of my clients, works great!
I tried looking this up. Do I understand that you install the Azure AD Connect client on all the computers and it lets them sign in with their o365 credentials?
No, you just use AzureAD. There is nothing to install.
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@mike-davis said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
When you create a Samba 4
If you have the CentOS box in the cloud, are you running a site to site VPN directly to the CentOS box from the router onsite and setting the clients to use the CentOS box for DNS?
Samba AD is identical to Windows AD. So you do everything the same, just at lower cost.
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@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
My friend who is a tech director for my kids school is having his budget slashed by a superintendent who doesn't think that much of technology. About 750 kids in the district (rural area) he has about 400-500 machines to manage. His budget is $20,000 for the year. So we are moving him to all open source. Moving from Novell eDirectory to a Samba 4 domain. Doing anything and everything to save him money.
If he wasn't using open source and was wasting money before, I'd not have thought much of technology either. Still running Novell in this day and age? I'm often a proponent of lowering school IT budgets, the overspend that they do is absurd - to the point that the extra money often causes more issues that it solves.
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@mike-davis said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
spare Windows 7 box on my bench, but Windows 7 is not supported.
Nope, but you can upgrade it for free to Windows 10.. so there you go.
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@mike-davis said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
That said, Passwords being the main thing that @Mike-Davis asked about, that's handled through O365 itself, no GPOs needed.
This is true. o365 admin center lets you create password change policies. If the Azure AD will let me create shares based on o365 usernames, I'll be all set.
Shares? From what server?
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@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:
My friend who is a tech director for my kids school is having his budget slashed by a superintendent who doesn't think that much of technology. About 750 kids in the district (rural area) he has about 400-500 machines to manage. His budget is $20,000 for the year. So we are moving him to all open source. Moving from Novell eDirectory to a Samba 4 domain. Doing anything and everything to save him money.
In all seriousness, $20K may or may not be enough for this particular year - we really don't know. One thing we do know, that would be enough to replace only about 20 PCs (30 if you scrimp), so let's hope for his sake that he doesn't need to replace much equipment.
$20K should go a lot farther than that with PCs. Forty at a minumum. $500 for a desktop is a lot in a school setting.
