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Integrating FreeNAS with Windows Active Directory

Fun with FreeNAS

Article from ADMIN 26/2015

By Joseph Guarino

FreeNAS offers a powerful array of features and is adaptable to a wide range of network-attached storage solutions. We look at integrating Windows Active Directory, taking snapshots, replicating, and backing up.

Whether you need a network-attached storage (NAS) solution for your enterprise or small business or just want to build a storage solution for your Windows network, FreeNAS has got you covered.

In a previous issue [1], I showed you how to install FreeNAS, configure sharing, and set up a basic client node. In this article, I dive into more advanced features, such as integrating Windows Active Directory, snapshots, replication, and backup.

Directory Options

Your FreeNAS system [2] can easily integrate with your existing network directory services or use its own local user configuration. If you are running Windows Active Directory, LDAP (e.g., OpenLDAP), NIS (Network Information Service), or NT4 (I hope not!), you can pull the usernames and passwords directly from your directory. In this article, I focus on integrating your FreeNAS box with Windows Active Directory.

In this example, I am building on Windows 2012 R2, but you could build this many other ways. For example, if you have an open source environment, you might build this on Samba 4, which can provide much of the same technology.

Unlike the last installment on FreeNAS, in which I used a local FreeNAS authentication system, this time, I instead point the FreeNAS system to a Windows 2012 Active Directory server. This effectively means that I don't have to recreate users in FreeNAS; instead, I refer to Windows AD for authentication.

In this configuration, FreeNAS polls the Windows 2012 Active Directory domain controller and imports the users into FreeNAS. Keep in mind that FreeNAS also supports being a domain controller (DC) itself or being an additional DC alongside your others. Here, I use it for authentication only, not as a full active directory implementation.

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