Back in the day (a Wednesday, for those who remember it) us WLUG/NZLUG folks were pretty clued up when it came to things like connecting Linux machines to Active Directory using SAMBA [1]. However, kids these days just don't know what kind of crap we had to go through back then, and while I haven't done the testing myself, I'm pretty sure that today you just type 'apt-get install likewise-open', and you don't have to know any magic incantations at all. How about if you want to run a central directory on Linux, not on Windows? You could look at the Ubuntu guide [2]. Or "LDAP for the Lazy Sysadmin" [3]. Do go check that last one out - you don't have to read it all. Just scroll through it for a second. I'll wait. <<taps toes>> That isn't lazy at all! Lazy is paying Microsoft for Active Directory. Unfortunately, due to one complexity or another, it seemed AD often won out for a situation where you had to have some Windows machines as well as your Linux hosts. I remember thinking it strange back when Windows was supposed to be all about the desktop and Linux was supposed to be all about the server, that you got a better client experience on Linux and server experience on Windows. It's 2010 now. Flying cars, etc. I want central authentication across a small network of Ubuntu machines - no Windows machines are expected. Ultimately I'd like multi-master (I believe 389, formerly Fedora DS/Netscape Directory Server does this; and OpenLDAP does not?) so I don't have to think too much about failover/redundancy. Please, someone, tell me there is a better solution? Is there a turn-key method for this? Craig [1] http://www.wlug.org.nz/SambaAsPDC?action=PageHistory and http://www.wlug.org.nz/LDAPAuthentication?action=PageHistory for some examples. Look at the dates. [2] https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/openldap-server.html [3] http://wiki.ucc.asn.au/LDAP/LazySysadmin