Novell's SLES9 vs. Microsoft's Win2K3
A Windows Domain Control & File Server Comparison
Introduction
With Novell's recent release of their SLES9 server (Suse Linux Enterprise Server), I decided to compare their new offering against Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server (Enterprise Edition) in a Windows based network environment. Can SLES9 be a viable server solution as an answer to using a Windows 2003 Server?
This article will compare these two server products in a small to medium sized Windows network environment. I will be using the following categories: reconfigurability, basic administration tasks, server tasks, file system performance, overall cost and user/computer management. These are basic functionalities that every network server needs to provide.
Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server
Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server (Win2k3) was released on 24 April 2003, and is the fourth major Server Operating System released by Microsoft in the 10+ year history of their NT product line. Win2k3 also continues on the development of Microsoft's Active Directory management database. Active Directory was first introduced with Windows 2000 Server, and has gone through some minor changes, especially in the field of maintainability and usability.
For more information on the history of Microsoft's Windows NT products visit this wikipedia page.
Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9
Over the past 8 years Novell has had a steady drop of sales of their Netware product line, mostly losing customers to Microsoft's NT Server line. In light of this fact, Novell decided to make drastic changes to their business model. Late last year (2003) Novell purchased two businesses that specialized in products based around the GNU/Linux Operating System. One of these companies, Suse, maintained a very popular "Linux distribution".
Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES9) is the third "Enterprise Server" released from Suse, which in turn is based on Suse Linux. Although SLES9 is the second Linux Operating System released since Novell purchased Suse, it is the first to actually contain any Novell branding.
Novell is planning to port most of their networking products to SLES, and their first major release of these products, Novell Open Enterprise Server, should be available in the first part of next year (2005). Novell's OES should include most of their popular addons, such as Zenworks and the Nterprise services, as well as introduce some new products such as iFolder.
For more information on the history of SLES9, visit the wikipedia sites for Suse and Novell Netware.
Server Administration
Most Servers will evolve over time, usually adding services, changing settings or simply fixing minor problems and annoyances. A server operating system should contain easy to use tools and utilities to help the administrator handle these issues. Both Windows 2003 Server and Novell's SLES9 Server utilize a central location for all server administration tasks that need to be done. Windows 2003 uses the control panel, the MMC and the Manage Your Server wizard, while SLES9 uses Suse's Yast program.
Win2K3 - Control Panel and Wizards
What really sells Windows 2003 Server to businesses is the fact that it looks and is configured in pretty much the same way that Windows XP is. Managers continue to believe, rightly or wrongly, that if the server is configured in pretty much the same way as what most people use at home, then it should be easy for their Administrators to maintain the server. I believe this can be true to an extent, but what usually happens is more and more "Administrators", qualified or not, try to maintain the server as they do their workstations. The result is that the server soon becomes unorganized and possibly less secure, especially when more than one person "configures" the server.
Any administrator familiar with Windows XP and has any Windows Networking experience could get Windows 2003 Server up and running quickly. This is due in large part to the inclusion of "server wizards" that are accessed through the Manage Your Server program.
Windows 2003 Server Configuration Utilities
Microsoft includes wizards for nearly every server task that Windows 2003 Server can accomplish. These wizards also utilize somewhat sensible default values when services first get installed. This is very important because with most installs on small networks, the Administrator will in fact keep the defaults as-is. "Why change something that works" is usually the mantra. Although the down side of this, of course, is the fact everyone else knows how W2k3 Server sets up all the services by default. So, it can be relatively easy for a "cracker" to break into a system once a security issue is discovered with a service that is enabled on the server.
Most of the other server configuration tasks can be handled through the "Control Panel", which is very similar to Windows XP.
SLES9 - YaST
Novell's answer to server administration is to include the ability to adjust nearly every aspect of the server through a single program - YAST. The YaST (Yet Another Setup Tool) application has been in active development for nearly as long as SuSE's been in business (early 1993). YaST has been recently licensed under the GNU GPL (General Public License) so other companies can take advantage of the development, as long as they contribute back their accomplishments.
The YaST program is very straight forward and is very thorough on what aspect of the server you can adjust. YaST allows you to change everything from network settings to how the apache web server functions. Although YaST also utilizes wizards, if you know how the service should be setup it is easy to get the service up and running to your specifications. This is quite a bit different than the "cookie cutter" wizard approach that Microsoft's Win2k3 Server uses.
Configuring SLES9 through the YaST application.
An advantage that Suse Linux Enterprise Server has over the Windows counterpart is the fact that you do not need to use a graphical display to adjust server settings. SLES9 is built on top of Suse Linux, and all of the servers can be adjusted either through the command line, or by simply modifying a text file. If the Administrator is knowledgeable in Unix/Linux administration, SLES9 can become very, very customized to your network environment. Microsoft is gradually adding more and more command line administration utilities to their server solutions, but currently they are no match for the power of a Unix/Linux shell.
Overall, it "feels" as if you have more control over your server when using SLES9 compared to Windows 2003. When you use the wizards in Windows 2003, it seems as if you are relying on the software to configure everything about a service, which is fine until something goes wrong. SLES9 seems to be much easier to troubleshoot and fix than Windows 2003.
Remote Administration
Both Windows 2003 Server and Suse Linux Enterprise Server offer the ability to remotely administer the server. Win2k3 server allows the Administrator to either remote control the server, or to log in remotely using Windows Terminal Services. However, both of these solutions do require you to have a somewhat fast connection in order to get anything done. Windows 2k3 Server also allows certain administration programs to access the server's resources over the network. Programs such as Microsoft Management Console (MMC), the registry editor and the Event Viewer allow remote connections in this way
SLES9 offers a few ways to remotely administer the system. SLES9 includes a VNC server that will allow you to remote control the server from either a VNC client or a java enabled web browser. You could also setup a remote X11 connections to allow you to remotely login from another computer (not recommended for security reasons). You can also utilize the Secure Shell that is included with SLES9. The secure shell approach is by far the most secure and most popular way to remotely administrate the server. Not only does it give you an encrypted shell connection, but you can also forward any port, including the X11 display through the SSH connection. So, for instance you can remotely log in using SSH with X11 forwarding enabled and either run YaST from the command line or forward the graphical YaST program to your local workstation using "gnomesu yast2".
Various ways to remotely Administer SLES9
Overall, if the Administrator is knowledgeable, SLES9 is by far the better solution when it comes to actually managing the server and all its services. Not only because Suse's YaST tool has more features and is easier to use, but also since you have the option of controlling just about everything from the shell.
Server Administration Leader: SLES9
User and Computer Administration
One of the most important and most used tasks in a network is the addition and management of users and computers. It is essential that all Administrators(and sometimes Power Users) have the ability to create, modify or delete user accounts, the easier it is the better.
This is where Windows 2003 Server really shines using it's Active Directory. Active Directory is simply an LDAP (Lightweight Directory and Access Protocol) server (plus other components) that contains the user and computer accounts. What really sets Active Directory apart however is the addition of a very easy to use, powerful client application that controls the user/computer database.
Using Active Directory it is very easy to add/remove users, sort computers, create containers for various users, etc. The power of this quickly becomes apparent when you need to quickly adjust the settings for a group of users or computers. Say, for instance you want to set the home page of all the sales people to the company's stock page, you simply need to create a custom policy that will do this for you and simply apply it to the sales container.
Administering Users through Active Directory and YaST.
Suse Linux Enterprise Server also, by default, stores all of the user account information into an LDAP server, but unfortunately the included Samba server does not utilize the LDAP back-end by default, you have to manually configure Samba to use the LDAP server for authentication, which is easy.
Since both Active Directory and Samba uses LDAP, Does this mean that the Samba server on SLES9 can be a used as an Active Directory Server? No, Samba is not meant to be a drop in replacement for an Active Directory Server, although it can be added to an existing Active Directory tree. In order to add users to SLES9, you simply need to add them utilizing the YaST program, the shell useradd command, or any other program that will allow you to add users to the system. Computers can be added "on the fly" from the workstation when you add the machine to the domain.
Overall, it is much easier to maintain Users and Computers with Windows 2003 Server than it is with SLES9. Although it is still not that difficult to do using SLES9. The weird part of this functionality is the fact that Microsoft's Active Directory feature is simply a re-implementation of Novell's Directory Services. However, once Novell's Open Enterprise Server is released, this may be a moot point.
User and Computer Administration Leader: Win2k3
