centralized user management for AIX-Servers?

[Guenther Bergmann]

Hi all,

given the following scenario, what is the best solution available for AIX:

- about 10 sites
- about 60-70 Servers located at the different sites
- most of them AIX servers, currently running 4.3.3
- about 10-15 Linux servers, running Red Hat 7.3 ord SuSE ES
- the AIX servers will be upgraded to 5.1 in the near future

The customer running these systems is looking for a cetralized user
management. Currently NIS+ is in use, but we are not happy with it for 2
reasons:
1. NIS+ as implemented on AIX 4.3.3 is quite unreliable. NIS+ server and
especially the replicas are terminating with strange error message. We have
calls open at IBM's software support without getting a solution.
2. We do have problems itegrating the Linux clients into NIS+

So, short question:
Are there any other ways to do a centralized user management?

Any help will be appreciated.

Best regards

Guenther

--
Guenther Bergmann, Am Kreuzacker 10, 63150 Heusenstamm, Germany
Guenther_Bergmann at gbergmann dot de
[url]http://www.gbergmann.de[/url]

[Andreas Schulze]

"Guenther Bergmann" <Guenther_Bergmann@gbergmann.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:r30331-c31.ln1@orion.gbergmann.de...

>
> Hi all,
>
> given the following scenario, what is the best solution available for AIX:
>
> - about 10 sites
> - about 60-70 Servers located at the different sites
> - most of them AIX servers, currently running 4.3.3
> - about 10-15 Linux servers, running Red Hat 7.3 ord SuSE ES
> - the AIX servers will be upgraded to 5.1 in the near future
>
> The customer running these systems is looking for a cetralized user
> management. Currently NIS+ is in use, but we are not happy with it for 2
> reasons:
> 1. NIS+ as implemented on AIX 4.3.3 is quite unreliable. NIS+ server and
> especially the replicas are terminating with strange error message. We

have

> calls open at IBM's software support without getting a solution.
> 2. We do have problems itegrating the Linux clients into NIS+
>
> So, short question:
> Are there any other ways to do a centralized user management?
>
> Any help will be appreciated.
>
> Best regards
>
> Guenther
>

Hallo Guenther,

we had similar problems when testing NIS+ on AIX 5L last spring. IBM told a
colleague of mine that "NIS works as designed - on Solaris". Might be, that
this sentence was spoken with tongue in cheak but from this phonecall we
draw the conclusion that we will not get support from Big Blue in this
respect. Consequently we removed NIS+ from our systems and build a solution
with rsync and some scripts to centralise user management.
The only working user management that comes with AIX/pSeries at the moment I
know is the SP way (aka SP2 or Cluster 1600 today) with PSSP and Kerberos.
However as you appear to have several Linux machines running I would suggest
LDAP. Setup the LDAP server on Linux and configure the AIX servers as LDAP
clients (not vice versa!). This should work.

Regards,
Andreas

[hdkutz]

"Andreas Schulze" <b79xan@gmx.de> wrote in message news:<bjmmnk$jnv3@news-1.bank.dresdner.net>...

> "Guenther Bergmann" <Guenther_Bergmann@gbergmann.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:r30331-c31.ln1@orion.gbergmann.de...

> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > given the following scenario, what is the best solution available for AIX:
> >
> > - about 10 sites
> > - about 60-70 Servers located at the different sites
> > - most of them AIX servers, currently running 4.3.3
> > - about 10-15 Linux servers, running Red Hat 7.3 ord SuSE ES
> > - the AIX servers will be upgraded to 5.1 in the near future
> >
> > The customer running these systems is looking for a cetralized user
> > management. Currently NIS+ is in use, but we are not happy with it for 2
> > reasons:
> > 1. NIS+ as implemented on AIX 4.3.3 is quite unreliable. NIS+ server and
> > especially the replicas are terminating with strange error message. We

> have

> > calls open at IBM's software support without getting a solution.
> > 2. We do have problems itegrating the Linux clients into NIS+
> >
> > So, short question:
> > Are there any other ways to do a centralized user management?
> >
> > Any help will be appreciated.
> >
> > Best regards
> >
> > Guenther
> >

>
> Hallo Guenther,
>
> we had similar problems when testing NIS+ on AIX 5L last spring. IBM told a
> colleague of mine that "NIS works as designed - on Solaris". Might be, that
> this sentence was spoken with tongue in cheak but from this phonecall we
> draw the conclusion that we will not get support from Big Blue in this
> respect. Consequently we removed NIS+ from our systems and build a solution
> with rsync and some scripts to centralise user management.
> The only working user management that comes with AIX/pSeries at the moment I
> know is the SP way (aka SP2 or Cluster 1600 today) with PSSP and Kerberos.
> However as you appear to have several Linux machines running I would suggest
> LDAP. Setup the LDAP server on Linux and configure the AIX servers as LDAP
> clients (not vice versa!). This should work.
>
> Regards,
> Andreas

Hello,
look in
AIX and Linux Interoperability SG24-6622-00
from
[url]http://www.redbooks.ibm.com[/url]
for detailed Information setting up an LDAP-Server for Identification
and Authentification.

Cheers,
ku