Active Directory Bridge

Authentication, Group Policy, Audit and Reporting

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Likewise AD Bridge Software Integrates Unix, Linux, and Mac with Active Directory

Likewise Enterprise is an Active Directory bridge product that yields a number of benefits to organizations with heterogeneous networks. The benefits include improved regulatory compliance, reduced costs, and fewer user sign-ons. Likewise's Active Directory (AD) bridge product lets organizations manage Unix, Linux, and Mac users from Active Directory. It also provides Kerberos authentication and single sign-on to Unix users and gives system administrators the power to centrally manage Unix systems with standard AD tools, such as the Group Policy Object Editor.

AD bridge products unite Unix and Microsoft environments through existing Active Directory infrastructure and the Microsoft tools that come with AD. Because Active Directory is a ubiquitous directory management solution and because many organizations nevertheless use a variety of Linux, Unix, and Mac platforms, implementing an Likewise Enterprise as an AD bridge product results in lower total cost of ownership for Unix, Linux, and Mac platforms. Likewise's AD bridge software makes Linux, Unix, and Mac systems easier to manage and easier to secure by providing a single user identity for Unix and Windows platforms and a common, highly secure authentication and authorization framework.

What Drives Organizations to Implement Likewise's AD Bridge Software?

Security and compliance concerns are a primary driver, but the management overhead -- and overload -- of maintaining obsolete directory services, such as NIS, or ad hoc directory services, such as a custom LDAP implementation or a home-grown Kerberos key distribution center. Specifically, here are some of the drivers our customers have cited for using Likewise software to build a bridge from Unix to Active Directory:

• Replace a Network Information Service (NIS) environment, an obsolete and insecure directory service.
• Reduce costs by managing heterogeneous workstations and users from a central source that frequently already exists in the organization -- Active Directory.
• Improve life cycle management of user identities -- user names and passwords -- for Unix environments.
• Provide a common, highly secure authentication framework for a heterogeneous network.
• Control access to sensitive resources.
• Limit access to different servers and other computing assets to privileged users.
• Manage both Unix and Windows systems with group policies.
• Make life easier for system administrators by empowering them to use a single, often familiar tool set to manage both Windows and Unix systems.
• Give Unix users single sign-on to Windows applications, such as Sharepoint.
• Give Windows users single sign-on to intranets and applications running on Unix servers, such as single sign-on for an intranet running on an Apache web server, an Oracle database, or a business application like SAP.
• Eliminate plain-text passwords or replace basic authentication with Kerberos.

The Likewise Enterprise Feature Set

The feature set of Likewise Enterprise makes the list of drivers for adopting AD bridge software a reality. Here's a list of the key features our AD bridge software provides:

• A NIS migration tool that imports Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X password and group files -- typically /etc/passwd and /etc/group -- and automatically maps their UIDs and GIDs to users and groups defined in Active Directory.
• Highly secure Kerberos authentication for Unix, Linux, Mac, and Windows users and groups
• Access control and granular authorization based on a variety of methods.
• Group policies for Unix computers that you can centrally manage from Active Directory with the familiar Microsoft MMC tools: The Group Policy Object Editor and the Group Policy Management Console.
• Identity management of Unix users: Unix user identities are managed through Active Directory Users and Computers, or ADUC, a standard user management tool for Active Directory. It runs on Windows. In addition, our AD bridge solution includes a Likewise Administrative Console plugin that lets you manage AD users from a Linux or Mac computer.



• Kerberos-based single sign-on to Unix machines for users originating from Windows, and vice versa. Likewise provides SSO for Windows and Unix applications, including the following:

- SSH
- Firefox
- Internet Explorer
- Windows file shares
- Sharepoint
- Putty
- Apache HTTP Server
- Tomcat
- BEA WebLogic
- Oracle
- IBM WebSphere
- DB2
- JBoss Application Server
- Samba
- Network Appliances
- SAP

For more information on Likewise's SSO capabilities, see Using Likewise for Single Sign-On .

Reporting and auditing modules that capture Unix logon, logoff, sudo, and other security events. The Likewise Administrative Console makes it possible to view the events from any other Linux or Mac computer. Likewise also includes reporting features that improve regulatory compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

Likewise Enterprise includes a variety of additional features to help solve your Active Directory bridge problems.

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