What I've been up to this week

I thought I might just write about some of my exciting job experiences this week. This is a geeky one.

I love my job. I work for a Christian charity called Adventure Plus as both an activity instructor and the IT Systems Administrator. As I have no subordinates on the IT side of things, this basically makes me the whole of the IT department, which can be any of fun, exciting, liberating, disheartening, horrific, terrifying, lonely, intense, hectic, stressful, rewarding and impressive on any given day. It's usually some combination of the above. The main reason for this is that I can count my IT qualifications without having to start counting. I have none. What I do have is a wealth of experience, an understanding of how technology works, a brain and a willingness to learn. This means that I go into problems with a good idea of what I want to achieve, a reasonable idea of what that will entail, and sometimes a vague idea of exactly how complicated it will be.

This week, I set up a new Primary Domain Controller for our office systems.

In layman's terms, that's the bit that makes logging on to a computer work. It means the computers know who you are, whether your username and password are correct, and what to do with that information (usually allow you some degree of access, set up a couple of shared drives, and apply some default settings). Our current server was originally set up before I started at A+, and runs Microsoft Windows Server 2003. I have no prior knowledge of Windows servers, Active Directory, roaming profiles, Group Policy, or any of a number of other things it pertains to do. This means that when something doesn't work, it takes me an age to figure out why and attempt to fix it. Also, it transpires that we don't have enough licences to allow all our computers to connect at once.

The new server runs Ubuntu 10.04 (Linux) and Samba 4.0, which is currently in heavy development. There is no sign of Windows or Microsoft anywhere on the new server, however I can log in as a Domain Administrator and use exactly the same management tools that I've been using on Windows from any computer that's part of my test network.

Roaming profiles work.
Group policies work.
Login and update scripts work.
Syncing the time works.
I even joined an Ubuntu desktop to the domain to see if I could. I could.

In one week, I have gone from having a computer with nothing on it to a fully working server that is more functional than our current Windows server. The operating system, and all software used so far, are not only free, but open source, and developed by communities of individuals. The running costs, from a software and licence viewpoint, are zero.

In one week, I have learned more about how to make Samba work as a PDC than in over two years attempting to learn the nuances of Microsoft Server 2003.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the setup that is in place. What I am trying to point out is that sometimes all the information you have about how to go about something is wrong, and actually there are simpler, better solutions if you just look for them.

Just to finish, I do not mean this to come across as arrogant. I am under no illusions as to my own abilities, and I've worked with Linux, and command line tools before. I had blocked out the next three weeks to get to the point I am now at with the new server. I was expecting to hit massive problems. I owe an awful lot of thanks to the helpful people on the #samba-technical IRC channel, and the people who wrote the HOWTO guide that got me most of the way there. I'm off canoeing down the Thames for a few days next week, and it's great to know that I'll be coming back to a shiny working server, rather than one in tatters.