[nzlug] Biting the Bullet -- Authentication & Email

[Leon Matthews]

Hi Everyone.

It's about high time I did something about the state of authentication for
my little company.  We currently just use local accounts but that's starting
to show its limitations now.  (You know how it goes...  There was just the
two of us at first, and mine was the only Linux desktop, so it seems
sensible... at first).

There are now four of us.  Three Linux desktops, one Mac OS X desktop, and
two Mac OS X laptops.  We also have a Debian file server locally, and a
telehoused Debian webserver that I look after.  We do automatic backups from
every machine in the office to the server using rsnapshot, but I feel we
could be doing better.

What I'm thinking of is moving our email storage to an IMAP server (on the
file server),  maybe doing the same to home folders, and using some sort of
centralised authentication.  However, I'm a programmer not a systems
administrator, so I need a little guidance from the group... :-)

What's the best approach for handling authentication for a wee little office
like ours?  Is LDAP overkill?  Is NSS yesterday's news?  What about the UIDs
that will appear on the remote server when we do an rsync?

Also, is it a terrible idea to setup and use an IMAP server as a place just
to physically store emails?  That is, let 'Evolution' and 'Mac OS Mail'
handle delivery via our ISPs SMTP servers and our existing POP accounts.
Running a mail domain seems  like it would take  more time than I have
spare, and our ISP seems to be doing an adequate job of it for us.

I'd appreciate any pointers!

Thanks,

	Leon

--
Leon Matthews BSc
Technical Director, Messiah Ltd.
http://www.messiah.co.nz/