Services for UNIX vs Windows Server 2003 R2 UNIX Interoperability

Services for UNIX is a software package which helps integrating UNIX systems in your Windows environment. With Services for UNIX 3.5 (which is the latest version of this product line) you get the following components -

    • NFS Connectivity
      • Server for NFS
      • Client for NFS and Gateway for NFS
    • Authentication and Password Management
      • Server for NIS and Password Synchronization
    • POSIX Development Environment
      • Interix Subsystem and utilities
    • Remote Connectivity
      • Windows and Interix based telnet servers and clients
      • Windows Remote Shell Service and Interix rshd
    • PCNFS Authentication
      • Server for PCNFS

Read more aboure these components here.

Services for UNIX 3.5 is the latest version of this product line and also the last one. Well, that doesn't mean these components will not be there and will not be improved.

Windows Server 2003 R2 already ships with improved version of some of the above components. These components are categorized as -

    • Microsoft Services for Network File System
    • Identity Management for UNIX (IdMU)
    • And, Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications

With Windows Server 2003 R2, you can run these components in 64-bit (AMD64) systems.

Client for NFS, Server for NFS, User Name Mapping and Server for NFS Authentication make Microsoft Services for Network File System. Identity Management for UNIX (IdMU) comprises of Server for NIS and Password Synchronization. Interix has been renamed Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications.

So as you can see Gateway for NFS, Windows Remore Shell Service, Server for PCNFS and Telnet server couldn't make their way to R2. Although, you can still configure and use SUA telnetd and rshd for remote shell access.

NFS components in R2 also have improved performance benefits. Some major changes which are introduced in these components in R2 are -

    • Active Directory schema now includes RFC2307 attributes with some minor deviations and Server for NIS makes use of them. RFC2307 defines the standard for using LDAP as a Network Information Service. Read more about it here
    • Server for NFS, Client for NFS can now directly look up and UIDs and GIDs from Active Directory
    • Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) now also contains SVR-5 utilities, supports connectivity to Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server using OCI and ODBC standard. More over, SUA is also available wih 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 R2
    • Password Synchronization adds support for Solaris 9 and Redhat Linux 9
    • The utilities and SDK for SUA are separately downloadable from here
    • UNIX-side SSOD components are now separately downlodable from this link

Complete list of what's new in R2 can be found here.