Univention Corporate Server (UCS) provides a shared trust and security context called a domain. This means, the members of the domain know and trust each other. To get access to resources and services provided within the domain, users and computers have to join the domain.
Linux clients, such as Ubuntu and its derivates, could be joined to a UCS domain for a long time, but it always involved a rather long process of copying commands from the Univention documentation to the command line of the involved systems.
In April of 2018 Univention released the new "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant" which provides both a graphical interface, making the whole join process a lot easier and time-saving, but also a CLI tool to automate the domain join of many Ubuntu clients.
Let‘s get started – the graphical way:
Let‘s assume we just installed a Univention Corporate Server in the current version of 4.3 and a plain Ubuntu 18.04 client – both with an out-of-the-box feature set and without any modifications. Using the optional software component "DHCP server" in UCS is not strictly necessary, but recommended.
Now log in to your Ubuntu client with a user. To install in Ubuntu 18.04/16.04/14.04/Linux Mint 19/18/17 open Terminal (Press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the following commands in the Terminal:
Those commands will add the "Personal Package Archive" (PPA) for the Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant, update the package index and then install the package "univention-domain-join".
A successful installation will add the Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant to the start menu:
Now start the "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant". Since we are going to change some system settings, we need to authenticate as a privileged user:
The "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant" will open. We need to enter the Domain Name (in my example that‘s "intranet.cabbage.org") OR the IP address of the UCS Master. Additionally we need a privileged Domain User that is allowed to join computers, e.g. "Administrator" and the corresponding password:
The join process might take some seconds. Afterwards we need to reboot the Ubuntu client:
Now we can log in with a Domain User:
You will also notice that a corresponding computer object has been created in UCS:
Automate it!
As mentioned above, Univention also provides a CLI tool that can be utilized to automate the whole process. And can be integrated in any automation or configuration management tool or you can wrap it in your own shell script – we just need to:
- optionally copy a file with the domain join password to the client (or provide it directly with the "--password" option)
- run "univention-domain-join-cli" with the needed options, e.g.:
This way we could join dozens of Ubuntu clients at once or even install and configure them with the help of a software management software like opsi (https://www.univention.com/blog-en/2018/05/automated-maintenance-of-linux-desktop-clients-in-the-ucs-domain-with-opsi/).
The CLI tool shows more information during the join process than the graphical interface, but both tools provide a logfile underneath "/var/log/univention/".
We hope this gives you an impression on what is possible with Univention Corporate Server and how easy the administration of a UCS domain can be. If you like further information on UCS, check this article Univention Corporate Server An Enterprise Linux (Overview And Tutorial)
https://www.noobslab.com/2018/10/univention-corporate-server-tutorial.html
Linux clients, such as Ubuntu and its derivates, could be joined to a UCS domain for a long time, but it always involved a rather long process of copying commands from the Univention documentation to the command line of the involved systems.
In April of 2018 Univention released the new "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant" which provides both a graphical interface, making the whole join process a lot easier and time-saving, but also a CLI tool to automate the domain join of many Ubuntu clients.
Let‘s get started – the graphical way:
Let‘s assume we just installed a Univention Corporate Server in the current version of 4.3 and a plain Ubuntu 18.04 client – both with an out-of-the-box feature set and without any modifications. Using the optional software component "DHCP server" in UCS is not strictly necessary, but recommended.
Now log in to your Ubuntu client with a user. To install in Ubuntu 18.04/16.04/14.04/Linux Mint 19/18/17 open Terminal (Press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the following commands in the Terminal:
Those commands will add the "Personal Package Archive" (PPA) for the Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant, update the package index and then install the package "univention-domain-join".
A successful installation will add the Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant to the start menu:
Now start the "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant". Since we are going to change some system settings, we need to authenticate as a privileged user:
The "Ubuntu Domain Join Assistant" will open. We need to enter the Domain Name (in my example that‘s "intranet.cabbage.org") OR the IP address of the UCS Master. Additionally we need a privileged Domain User that is allowed to join computers, e.g. "Administrator" and the corresponding password:
The join process might take some seconds. Afterwards we need to reboot the Ubuntu client:
Now we can log in with a Domain User:
You will also notice that a corresponding computer object has been created in UCS:
Automate it!
As mentioned above, Univention also provides a CLI tool that can be utilized to automate the whole process. And can be integrated in any automation or configuration management tool or you can wrap it in your own shell script – we just need to:
- optionally copy a file with the domain join password to the client (or provide it directly with the "--password" option)
- run "univention-domain-join-cli" with the needed options, e.g.:
This way we could join dozens of Ubuntu clients at once or even install and configure them with the help of a software management software like opsi (https://www.univention.com/blog-en/2018/05/automated-maintenance-of-linux-desktop-clients-in-the-ucs-domain-with-opsi/).
The CLI tool shows more information during the join process than the graphical interface, but both tools provide a logfile underneath "/var/log/univention/".
We hope this gives you an impression on what is possible with Univention Corporate Server and how easy the administration of a UCS domain can be. If you like further information on UCS, check this article Univention Corporate Server An Enterprise Linux (Overview And Tutorial)
https://www.noobslab.com/2018/10/univention-corporate-server-tutorial.html
