## Chapter 3 Summary

Windows NT Users represent either real people or pseudo-users. Windows NT groups allow collections of users specific rights, as compared to assigning individual user rights.

UNIX uses YP/NIS to help manage a networked distributed database. Windows NT uses the concept of domains. Each allows those resources spread across a network to be managed securely and efficiently. However, in UNIX remote computers can be trusted, so users are treated as if they were local to that computer. The Windows NT security domain system has a similar concept called trusts. Efficiency can be an issue when working with large quantities of administrative data. Windows NT includes utilities, strategies, and command lines that can be used to help work with a lot of data, such as the scaling user and group accounts.

Carefully plan your integration of Windows NT and UNIX user and group accounts because this can be an extremely time-consuming and risky project. For authentication efforts, consider third-party packages, or consider having a Windows NT computer authenticate a Windows NT user wishing to connect to a UNIX file system.

The following table compares Windows NT and UNIX administration practices for users and groups.

Feature | Windows NT | UNIX
Logon preferences | Profiles, Logon Scripts | X Windows resource files, shell startup files
Users and groups | Global and local | Yes
User and group information storage | Registry, policies | etc/password and etc/group
Distributed network security database | NT domain model | YP/NIS

The following table compares Windows NT and UNIX account creation.

Task | Windows NT | UNIX
Manage < 50 users/groups | User Manager | vi editor (no specialized utility)
Manage > 50 users/groups | Net commands, batch files, scripts, Perl and REXX (both in the NTRK) | Shell commands or Perl scripts

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Last Updated: December 1, 1997