I’m curious as to why someone would need to do that short of having a bunch of users and a small office at home. Or maybe managing the family’s computers is easier that way?

I was considering a domain controller (biased towards linux since most servers/VMs are linux) but right now, for the homelab, it just seems like a shiny new toy to play with rather than something that can make life easier/more secure. There’s also the problem of HA and being locked out of your computer if the DC is down.

Tell me why you’re running it and the setup you’ve got that makes having a DC worth it.

Thanks!

  • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    You’re overlooking a very common reason that people setup a homelab - practice for their careers. Many colleges offer a more legitimate setup for the same purpose, and a similar design. But if you’re choosing to learn AD from a free/cheap book instead of a multi-thousand dollar course, you still need a lab to absorb the information and really understand it.

    Granted, AD is of limited value to learn these days, but it’s still a backbone for countless other tools that are highly relevant.

  • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    I do, for a multitude of reasons

    • Easier management of family computers
    • an authoritative source for Authentik SSO
    • Learning experience, I’m also heavy Linux, but I try to maintain an OS agnostic philosophy with my skill set so I can have options in my career
    • I was bored
    • Again, since I like to maintain an OS agnostic philosophy I have a healthy mix of Windows, Linux and MacOS devices, and you CAN in fact join Linux (w/ SSSD) and MacOS to a domain too

    In addition to what others have said with roaming profiles and such:

    DO NOT SET YOUR AD DOMAIN AS THE SAME DOMAIN OF A WEB ADDRESS YOU USE

    I…er…someone… Found themselves in this situation and have been in a mess since lmao

  • kylian0087@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    I in fact run a AD domain controller *and *a rhel IDM controller. For me other then it is fun to play with, makes it a load more simple to manage the user accounts of my famalie. Also auto mounting network shares and setting a few policys for updates and security is great to from a central location. having SSO for many if my services also makes it more easy to use for the fam. The rhel IDM controller I use to manage a few user accounts. I also use it to manage the ssh keys and set sudo rules on all my servers.