A domain controller (DC) is a
server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a computer
network domain. It is a
network server that is responsible for allowing
host access to domain resources. It authenticates users, stores user account information and enforces
security policy for a domain. It is most commonly implemented in
Microsoft Windows environments (see
Domain controller (Windows)), where it is the centerpiece of the Windows
Active Directory service. However, non-Windows domain controllers can be established via
identity management software such as
Samba
Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havi ...
and
Red Hat FreeIPA
FreeIPA is a free and open source identity management system. FreeIPA is the upstream open-source project foRed Hat Identity Management
Overview
FreeIPA aims to provide a centrally managed Identity, Policy, and Audit (IPA) system. It uses ...
.
Software
The software and operating system used to run a domain controller usually consists of several key components shared across
platforms. This includes the operating system (usually
Windows Server or
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
), an
LDAP service (
Red Hat Directory Server
The 389 Directory Server (previously Fedora Directory Server) is a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server developed by Red Hat as part of the community-supported Fedora Project. The name "389" d