Stanford has approximately 38000 users from students in dorm rooms to high capacity, high volume computing occuring in the engineering and business schools. In the past the Mac was the predominant system on campus. That is rapidly changing to the Wintel PC. We are exploring the most efficient, cost effective techniques for integrating the wintel platform into our established UNIX environment. Central to that effort is an efficient process for connecting NT domain controllers to the central user account repository instead of replicating accounts as is the current method.

Additionally, Stanford relies heavily on kerberos authentication for security. Since we don't rely on a closed Microsoft environment (NT server, exchange server, sql server, etc...) but rather connect to UNIX mail servers, UNIX databases, and centralized AFS storage, the NT user needs the capability of authenticating to these resources without unencrypted password transmission.

I am currently involved in managing a team that provides system administration of UNIX and NT for users on campus. A part of that working level involvment includes a campus working group has been established to provide guidance to users involved in initial setup of department-level NT networks. This guidance includes connectivity to the campus computing environment, uniform establishment and registration of NT domains and user tips. The goal is to provide a vehicle for NT users/administrators to voluntarily ahdere to centralized recommendations and standards without threatening the autonomy currently enjoyed across the campus.

********************************************************************
Jim Brown Phone 415-723-3354
Computer Administration Support Fax 415-725-9121
Distributed Computing Group (ITSS) 322 Sweet Hall
Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-3090
jhbrown@stanford.edu https://www-cas.stanford.edu