UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hey guys.

Maybe this should go in Security, I'm not sure...

At my work we make websites. Our development servers for these websites are run on a central Debian linux server which we can SSH into, which also contains all the files for these websites. These files are served to the entire network with Samba so windows can read them.

Every individual workstation runs Windows XP and all our windows users and email are managed by a Microsoft Exchange Server with Active Directory.

The problem is this: each user in the Microsoft Active Directory has to be duplicated into Samba, meaning that every new user needs to tell the technical team their username and password so we can add them in. This is of course less than ideal security.

So my question is: is there a way to integrate Unix and Samba with the Microsoft Active Directory so that every user will automatically have access to the Samba file share?

Also all our employees have a number of log-ins to individual sites - is there any way to interface this Microsoft Active Directory with perl scripts so that people can use their windows login for websites as well?

Ta,
Robin.

Unix & Linux Active Directory Integration and Authentication Tools from Quest Software

Otherwise you can use LDAP and Kerberos to achieve somewhat the same with a few more gymnastics.
Native LDAP, native Kerberos and Windows Server 2003 R2 AD Services and schema