Likewise and Centrify are pretty similar as far as installation and joining a domain are concerned. Likewise also offers a graphical interface–albeit one with no features beyond the very basic–for joining a domain, as well as a command-line utility.
Centrify has the advantage of offering the option to join at install time, but both products provide utilities for joining a domain at any later point with a relatively simple command. Joining machines to a domain after installing Likewise Open and Centrify Express is also pretty simple. There’s really not much more to say here. In both cases, installation via the scripts was pretty straightforward and took only a few minutes. Alternatively, rather than running the installation script, you can manually install a set of Debian packages that provide the Centrify binaries. They must be run from the terminal there’s no graphical interface. In the meantime, installation scripts customized for Ubuntu are available from Centrify’s website.
According to a Centrify employee, however, Canonical validated the product this week, so we should see it in the Software Center soon. Likewise offers both graphical and command-line installers for Linux.Ĭentrify doesn’t yet have packages in Ubuntu’s repositories.
Likewise Open is available from the Ubuntu repositories for releases 8.04 and up, but in order to get the latest version, you’ll have to download an installer from the company’s website.
Both applications are available as free downloads on their respective developers’ websites. More specifically, we compared Likewise Open version 6, which was released about a month ago, to Centrify Express, a new member of the Centrify product suite that was introduced in June. Each product can also be upgraded to licensed versions that provide more features, but we’ve stuck with the free-to-use releases for the purposes of this post. Here’s what we found.Īs we’ve explained in past coverage of Likewise Open and Centrify Express, both applications offer the same basic service–simple Active Directory-based authentication for Unix systems–for the same price–free. We wanted to know which is best, so we’ve spent the last several weeks testing the competing products. Of course, the two companies’ offerings work in different ways. For references to the official PuTTY documentation, see Getting more information.The market for integrating Linux machines into Active Directory environments has been heating up in recent months, with both Likewise and Centrify releasing new software that does almost exactly the same thing: make joining a domain as simple as a few clicks or keystrokes. puttygen.exe is an RSA and DSA key generation utility.įor more information about using these programs, see the official PuTTY documentation.psftp.exe is a secure file transfer (SFTP) client.pscp.exe is a command-line secure file copy (SCP) client.plink.exe is a command-line interface to the PuTTY backend.pageant.exe is a secure shell ( ssh) authentication agent for the PuTTY, PSCP, and Plink programs.In addition to the PuTTY client ( putty.exe), the following PuTTY-related programs are installed: Click Finish upon successful completion of the installation.If you see a User Account Control warning, click Yes to continue.On the Confirm installation page, click Next to start the installation.Select a folder where the software should be installed by accepting the default location or clicking Browse to select a different location and specify who can use the PuTTY client on this computer.If another version of the software is installed on the local computer, you are prompted to remove it before you can proceed. msi file to start the PuTTY client setup program. To install the Centrify PuTTY client from its standalone setup program: If you downloaded the Centrify PuTTY client as a separate software package from the Centrify website, the package includes the standalone setup program for installing the PuTTY client outside of Server Suite. You can install the Centrify PuTTY client by selecting it when you install other Server Suite components or as a standalone executable using its own setup program. Alternatively, you can install on computers in the Windows Server product family-such as Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012-if you want your computer to be configured with additional server roles.įor more detailed and most up-to-date information about supported operating system versions, see the Centrify website.
For example, you can use Windows 7 or Windows 8. Before installing, you should verify that you have a supported version of one of the Windows operating system product families. The Centrify PuTTY client software is only supported on Windows computers.