Systemd-homed Looks Like It Will Merged Soon For systemd 245

[starshipeleven]

Wow... "Has never seen a Unix work environment" ...And yet somehow you're a proponent of Linux and know how to best implement it?

Umm, no I'm not proposing anything. I'm just asking wtf is that and why you think it is different.

The only model you know is Windows

(and Linux's domain also) because when I ask wtf is "the Unix model" the little shits keep evading the question and never answer, probably because they don't know, or know it is more or less the same as AD and want to look cool.

Sun, IBM and Novel all had domain services for Unix (Solaris, IRIX, or AIX) workstations. The largest competitor to AD was Novel Netware. (that actually still exists under SuSE)

AFAIK they didn't differ significantly from AD's model, and they are all long dead (the "domain" functionality for the very least, but Solaris, IRIX and AIX are all more or less dead as servers too).
What could a "Unix domain" do that AD or Kerberos+LDAP can't?

NetWare is also long dead (General support ended in 2010, Extended support ended in 2015), and was replaced with SUSE Enterprise Linux Server running Kerberos+LDAP something something like every other businness-oriented Linux distro.

In modern days, macOS is the Unix workstation.

So a Unix workstation is a PC with a Unix-certified OS that has Kerberos and LDAP support? Because that's what MacOS is. (they also support Windows AD)

Now explain how is this different from a Linux workstation, that is a Linux OS with kerberos and LDAP support (that also supports Windows AD).

[boxie]

So a Unix workstation is a PC with a Unix-certified OS that has Kerberos and LDAP support? Because that's what MacOS is. (they also support Windows AD)

Now explain how is this different from a Linux workstation, that is a Linux OS with kerberos and LDAP support (that also supports Windows AD).

So: alternative options that I can see include
* maybe admin via ssh? (maybe using gravitational teleport / cmd.com for the audit side of things)?
* lol you are on your own, manage your own standalone system
* Linux Subsystem for Windows (ok, I admit I am really starting to stretch things here)

[starshipeleven]

So: alternative options that I can see include
* maybe admin via ssh? (maybe using gravitational teleport / cmd.com for the audit side of things)?
* lol you are on your own, manage your own standalone system
* Linux Subsystem for Windows (ok, I admit I am really starting to stretch things here)

The main takeaway here is that the concept of "domain" remains the same. In a "domain" there is a centralized authentication server that also can store home folders (or not, or just sync them depending on the workstation's use case).

You can do it with scripts that orchestrate a constellation of dumb tools too (what someone thinks is the "Unix way" of doing things), but at the end of the day it's just an AD-lookalike, not a really different thing.

[tuxd3v]

I am glad, that everything comes out of one hand soon
The desktop, The Init-System, The Audio-and-Video-handler, The new Flat-Packaging-System
So why do we care for other distributions ? Switch today, soner or later you have to
This is a troll post to stir up the show

Indeed..
Its called SystemDoS

[timofonic]

Linuxd.

Windows Subsystem for Linux, aka Wine.

[Hugh]

All workstations have always been Windows or some random thin client where the OS does not matter.

That's an odd claim. For example, Sun were used for "client server computing" for a long time. Sun Workstations (like my Sun 3/60 and SPARCClassic) were workstations running SunOS and Solaris. Many competing UNIX vendors produced workstations.

[starshipeleven]

That's an odd claim.

It's taken out of context.
It's context is
I never seen anything "unix" using something like AD, they all retreated to mainframes and eventually disappeared. All workstations have always been Windows or some random thin client where the OS does not matter.

This is my own personal experience, and yes I never saw any meaningful use of Unix workstations before Unix disappeared completely. I don't live in the US, so what was common there is definitely not common outside of it.

Which is what made me ask what is an "Unix enterprise client" in the first place. And that guy still didn't answer me. MacOS isn't a "Unix enterprise client" any more than Linux or Windows are. Is there any difference with a modern AD-like (or kerberos+LDAP) setup?

[k1e0x]

That's an odd claim. For example, Sun were used for "client server computing" for a long time. Sun Workstations (like my Sun 3/60 and SPARCClassic) were workstations running SunOS and Solaris. Many competing UNIX vendors produced workstations.

This is exactly right. The Unix model how it differed is it's much more like the mainframe model. The data was generally at rest server side via NFS. I worked at AT&T in the 90's and we had Sun workstations. (If you've ever wondered who kept/keeps Unix alive look no further than AT&T and friends.. they don't really announce it tho). Authentication over just LDAP right? well sometimes.. sometimes it was NIS, and there were a few other products out there as I mentioned, even passwd with cfengine. At the time it wasn't really that uncommon. It was Microsoft that moved work data to the local hard disk with Win98/Win2000. It's ironic that most of that data is moving back server side like the old mainframes now. And that is the real difference generally. It's where the data is at rest.. Yes, you can do server side in Windows but few ppl do, SMB/CIFS is kind of a messy protocol to do this on.

So when you understand that and look at homed.. (you got homed!) Is this really doing the right thing? I tend to be a fan of looking at client systems as being trivial. They are a OS, that runs a web browser, (a graphical terminal really) a mail client and a chat app. Then you view them like that.. the client OS can be whatever you want. Windows, mac, linux, android.. whatever.. your IT department doesn't care what they are so long as they can run the endpoint security.

Now... maybe it has to do with the modern CPU being so much faster in relation to the rest of the system.. but the network can still be faster than the disk.. and protecting IP is a greater challenge when data is local.