Posted by arlene

Instead of trying to tackle the enormous job of developing still more applications to make it easier to integrate Unix and Windows into a cohesive network, Microsoft chose to take advantage of developments by other vendors and instead released the Windows NT Services for Unix Add-On Pack. This set of applications contains in-house applications developed by Microsoft as well as products licensedand bought from other companies. Now simply called Services for Unix (SFU) Version 3.5, this optional software, which can be downloaded for free, contains applications that were developed by Microsoft and other vendors, but that can be downloaded as a single package.

Tip

SFU 3.5 has been tested to work with Solaris 7 and 8, HP-UX 1 1 i, Redhat Linux 8.0, and IBM AIX 5L 5.2, although it islikely to work with other UNIX implementations as well.

In addition, you’ll find many other components, such as support for Sun’s Network Information System (NIS) among others.

SFU 3.5 can be run on Windows 2000 and Server 2003, and even Windows XP Professional. Windows XP will be the example. Perhaps the best thing about SFU, besides its price (free!), is that you can install it on as many computers in your network as you want. You don’t have to buy a license or additional copies of the software for each computer.

Installing SFU 3.5

Installing SFU 3.5 is a simple task, as explained in this section. Note that some of the dialog boxes and steps in the following text might not appear during your installation. This example is based on installing all components of SFU 3.5. If you select less than all components, only dialog boxes for those components will appear. To begin the installation:

1. Browse to the download location (it’s a 217MB file) and double-click it to start. Click Run if prompted. Use Browse to specify a location for the uncompressed files. Click Unzip when prompted to extract the files. Click OK when prompted, then Close.
2. Browse to the location you selected for the files in Step 1. Double-click Setup. Click Next to continue.
3. The next wizard dialog box asks you to enter customer information (your name and organization name). After you click Next, the End User License Agreement (EULA) dialog box appears. Read the licensing information, click the I Accept The Agreement radio button, and then click Next.
4. You’re then presented with a dialog box asking whether you want to select the standard installation or a custom installation. I suggest you select the custom installation because doing so gives you the ability to select just the components you want to install. Using the Custom Installation radio button, you can make choices in the next dialog box.
5. You can see the Selecting Components dialog box (if you chose to perform a custom installation). Some of the entries in this dialog box can be expanded by clicking on the plus sign (+) to reveal additional components. To get a brief description of each component, click once and read the text that appears at the bottom of the dialog box under the Description label.
6. Use the arrow button (pointing downward) to reveal the options for each component. The options you can select are a) Will be installed on local hard drive, b) Entire feature (including all subfeatures if any) will be installed on the local hard drive, or c) Entire feature will not be available. An icon that looks like a hard drive will be displayed for each component you select to install. A red X will appear by a component you’ve chosen not to install. Click Next.
7. If you chose to install the Interix GNU SDK (software development kit), the next wizard dialog box gives you information about the GNU license. If you accept these licensing terms, click Nett. If you don’t accept them, click Back and deselect that option.
8. Another license dialog box; this one appears if you chose to install ActiveState Pearl. This license is presented as an option because the component is provided by a third-party software developer instead of Microsoft. Click I Accept the Agreement radio button and then click Next to continue. Otherwise, click the Back button to deselect this option.
9. You can enable the setuid options for programs that run under the Interix system, and change Windows default from case-insensitive behavior to case sensitive. This is because the Unix and Linux operating systems use case-sensitive filenames. For example, MyFile.txt is not the same file as MYFILE.TXT.
10. If you’ve decided to install username mapping, a dialog box will ask you to enter the name of the server that runs this service. You can enter the server name here or enter it at a later time if you don’t know the name of the server. Click Next.
11. If you chose to install the NIS/Password Synchronization component, the next wizard screen informs you that this feature will need to be installed on all replicas of domain controllers in your domain and that the Active Directory schema will be changed. Remember that changes to the schema cannot be deleted, although they can be disabled.
12. The wizard lets you choose the hard drive and directory path that will be used to install the SFU components. Make your choices and click Next.
13. A wizard screen will show the progress as the installation of SFU components are installed. After the selected components have been installed, the services for SFU will be started. This can take a few minutes, depending on the services chosen and the hardware of your server.
14. Finally, a wizard screen will inform you that the SFU components have been installed, and that some services, such as c ron and some of the Interix daemons (background processes similar to services in Windows operating systems), have not been started. To start these, use Start/ Administrative Tools/Services for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 (or Start/Programs/ Administrative Tools/Services for Windows 2000) to start or stop the new services that have now been added to Windows.

After the installation has finished, you have to restart your server to make all components available.

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