IT4103FP System Administration

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TOPIC 1.3 : OS Interoperability


Interoperability can be defined as the ability of a system to run applications programs from
different vendors and interact with other computers across local or wide area networks
regardless of their physical architecture and operating systems. It enhances the ability of a
system or a product to work well together with other systems or products without any special
effort on the part of the customer. Because a typical IT department comprises a mix of Unix,
Linux and Windows, interoperability is more important than ever.

Benefits:
Ensure open connections to heterogeneous products
Promote data portability
Enhance support for industry standards


Approach to operability.

There are two approach to achive operability.
1. Follow published and open standards and protocols
2. Use a service to convert one products interface into another product.


Areas of inteoperability

1. Network
Enable multivendor systems to communicate by using established networking protocols
and services.E.g Using TCP/IP to access network and internet services instead of propriety
protocols.

2. Data Interoperability
Enable users and applications to access and query information stored on different systems
by using natively supported file systems and file format. E.g Use Network File System to
enable Windows and Linux users to share files and converting files to supported formats eg
gif to png file format.

3. Applications Interoperability
Enabl e appl i cati ons to run across OS. E.g Devel oper to use standard such as
Corba and XML to ensure portabi l i ty of codes.

4. Management Interoperability
Support securi ty protocol s i n areas such as authenti cati on and encrypti on.

Di rectory servi ce : Provi de a consi stent way to l ocate, access, manage, and
secure network resources by adopti ng protocol s such as LDAP and Kerberos.
Uni x and Wi ndows cl i ent can authenti cate between system.

System Management : Support management of events, al erts, perf ormance
characteri sti cs of devi ce by usi ng tool s based on protocol such as SNMP.





IT4103FP System Administration


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Collaboration between Windows from Linux

Implementation of interoperability

It is possible for Linux and Windows to coexist by using the following method.

1. Use alternative product to help bridge the operating system.

o Cross-platform software for applications such as Browsers, email and FTP
o Using standard File formats eg Txt, PDF, HTML, XML,mp3
o Remote control eg VNC
o Printer and file sharing using Samba
o Network File System (NFS) to Emulate file system















Active Directory Integration for Unix and Linux Systems

By using common Directory Service such as Active Directory Linux uses are able to access
Windows resource and can be centrally controlled using group policies .

Advantages
Users have one login name and one password that can be used across Windows, Linux and
UNIX
Consistent policies such as password length and complexity can now be enforced across
Windows, Linux and UNIX


File sharing with Samba

Successfully networking your Ubuntu system with Windows clients involves providing and
integrating with services common to Windows environments. Such services assist the sharing
of data and information about the computers and users involved in the network, and may be
classified under three major categories of functionality:

File and Printer Sharing Services. Using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to
facilitate the sharing of files, folders, volumes, and the sharing of printers throughout the
network.

Directory Services. Sharing vital information about the computers and users of the
network with such technologies as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and
Microsoft Active Directory.



Linux (FTP)
Linux (WWW)
Linux (Print)
running SAMBA
Windows (WWW)
Windows (FTP)
Windows (File)
running NFS
Windows
Browser
Windows
FTP
Linux
FTP
Linux
Browser
Windows
FTP
Linux
SAMBA
Network
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Authentication and Access. Establishing the identity of a computer or user of the network
and determining the information the computer or user is authorized to access using such
principles and technologies as file permissions, group policies, and the Kerberos authentication
service.

Samba is a free software re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. Samba
provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a
Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or as a domain
member. It can also be part of an Active Directory domain.

Samba is standard on nearly all distributions of Linux and is commonly included as a basic
system service on other Unix-based operating systems

- Samba sets up network shares for chosen Unix directories (including all contained
subdirectories). These appear to Microsoft Windows users as normal Windows folders
accessible via the network. Unix users can either mount the shares directly as part of their
file structure using the smbmount command or, alternatively, can use a utility, smbclient
(libsmb) installed with Samba to read the shares with a similar interface to a standard
command line FTP program.

- Each directory can have different access privileges overlaid on top of the normal Unix file
protections. For example: home directories would have read/write access for all known
users, allowing each to access their own files. However they would still not have access to
the files of others unless that permission would normally exist. Note that the netlogon
share, typically distributed as a read only share from /etc/samba/netlogon, is the logon
directory for user logon scripts.

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications
Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) is a source-compatibility subsystem for
compiling and running custom UNIX-based applications on a computer running a Microsoft
Windows server-class operating system. It enable UNIX applications to become fully
interoperable with Windows in SUA with little or no change to your original source code.
Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications provides an operating system for Portable Operating
System Interface (POSIX) processes. SUA, along with its package of support utilities (such as
shells and a Telnet client) provides a complete UNIX environment. The download package
includes a comprehensive set of scripting utilities, and a software development kit (SDK)
designed to fully support the development capabilities of SUA and to provide a complete UNIX-
based application development experience.
SUA also supports case-sensitive file names, job control, compilation tools, and the use of over
300 UNIX commands, utilities, and shell scripts. Because the subsystem installs separately
from the Windows kernel, it offers true UNIX functionality without any emulation.