Accessing network appliance or storage servers

One of the most common uses for the Server Suite OpenLDAP proxy service is to provide access to the files stored on legacy network appliance file servers and storage devices. Many organizations use network appliance file servers and storage area network devices to provide highly available and scalable data storage services that support multiple client access protocols—including NFS, CIFS and iSCSI—and multiple operating systems.

Supporting multiple protocols and operating systems, however, presents a challenge when users want to access files from computers with different operating systems. To ensure users are granted proper access to files stored on a network appliance or storage server, their identity attributes must be consistently defined for both UNIX and Windows operating systems.

For example, the identity attributes that allow access to the files on a network appliance or storage server might be UNIX profile attributes from a common NIS or LDAP repository. The UID and GID values establish file ownership and file access permissions. For Windows users to access the files stored on the network appliance or storage server, their Windows account must be mapped to the UNIX profile that grants them the appropriate file permissions.