Join Ubuntu into Windows domainm - Likewise Open

Likewise Open

Likewise Open simplifies the necessary configuration needed to authenticate a Linux machine to an Active Directory domain. Based on winbind, the likewise-open package takes the pain out of integrating Ubuntu authentication into an existing Windows network.

Installation

There are two ways to use Likewise Open, likewise-open the command line utility and likewise-open-gui. This section focuses on the command line utility.
To install the likewise-open package, open a terminal prompt and enter:

sudo apt-get install likewise-open

Joining a Domain

The main executable file of the likewise-open package is /usr/bin/domainjoin-cli, which is used to join your computer to the domain. Before you join a domain you will need to make sure and have:

• Access to an Active Directory user with appropriate rights to join the domain.
  
• The Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the domain you want to join.
  
• DNS for the domain setup properly. In a production AD environment this should be the case.
  

To join a domain, from a terminal prompt enter:

sudo domainjoin-cli join example.local Administrator

	Replace example.local with your domain name, and Administrator with the appropriate user name.

You will then be prompted for the user's password. If all goes well a SUCCESS message should be printed to the console.
After successfully joining an Ubuntu machine to an Active Directory domain you can authenticate using any valid AD user. To login you will need to enter the user name as 'domain\username'. For example to ssh to a server joined to the domain enter:

ssh 'example\steve'@hostname

	If configuring a Desktop the user name will need to be prefixed with domain\ in the graphical logon as well.

The domainjoin-cli utility can also be used to leave the domain. From a terminal:

sudo domainjoin-cli leave

Other Utilities

The likewise-open package comes with a few other utilities that may be useful for gathering information about the Active Directory environment. These utilities are used to join the machine to the domain, and are the same as those available in the samba-common and winbind packages:

• lwinet: Returns information about the network and the domain.
  
• lwimsg: Allows interaction with the likewise-winbindd daemon.
  
• lwiinfo: Displays information about various parts of the Domain.
  

Please refer to each utility's man page specific for details.

References

Please refer to the Likewise home page for further information.