As this is a book on Linux automation, an in-depth discussion of Microsoft AD and its setup and configuration is well beyond its scope. Suffice to say that in the context of Linux, AD is best suited to centralized user account management, although, of course, its capabilities are far greater than this. Most organizations that need an AD server will already have one set up, and so, our concern is not with this aspect, but with getting our Linux servers to authenticate against it.
On most modern Linux distributions, the realmd tool is used to join the Linux server in question to AD. Next, we consider a hypothetical example of joining a CentOS 7 server to AD—however, every organization, their AD setup, organizational units, and ...
