An updated version of Microsoft’s Windows Services for Unix (SFU) combines the existing separate SFU and Interix products into a single lower-priced product that customers can use to migrate from Unix to Windows or interoperate between both platforms. SFU 3.0 also offers small incremental improvements to the existing features, but customers should realize that successful migration or interoperability depends more on their knowledge of Windows and Unix than on the tools they use.

SFU is strategic to Microsoft because it allows customers to move existing Unix applications to Windows. Microsoft even used these products to move its own MSN Hotmail property from FreeBSD to Windows. Other alternatives, such as the open source Samba product, encourage ongoing interoperability by allowing Unix boxes to access files and printers from Windows systems.

Interix

The Interix environment enables users to compile and execute Unix applications and run Unix shell scripts on Windows NT 4 or higher servers, allowing for the elimination of Unix servers. The environment is compliant with the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standard, a set of source-code operating-system standard interfaces based on Unix. Interix supports over 900 of the Unix APIs defined in the POSIX.1 standard, and it provides the ability to run Unix shell scripts by supporting the POSIX.2 standard.

Merging Interix into SFU now gives Microsoft a single product that enables customers to port both applications and scripts from Unix to Windows. That doesn't mean it's a panacea, however; much of the effort of porting a large application is in planning exactly which portions to migrate, which portions to rewrite, and how best to configure the services and servers required to host the migrated application.

The biggest improvement to the version of Interix included in SFU is support for a Unix rooted file system, meaning that users writing or using scripts can use the Unix path syntax (/bin/build.ksh) instead of having to modify standard Unix shell scripts to use the Windows drive-letter-based path syntax (U:/bin/build.ksh).

Incremental SFU Improvements

There are no new services in SFU, but several existing ones have new features, including the following:

Network File System (NFS). SFU includes an NFS client that allows Windows users to mount and access files stored on Unix systems and an NFS server that allows Unix users and servers to mount and access files from Windows systems. Improvements in SFU 3.0 include better performance through caching on the NFS client, support for symbolic links (a file containing a pathname of another file, allowing links to cross different NFS file systems), and improvements in internationalization, such as the ability to share Windows files with Japanese, Korean, or Chinese character filenames.

User Name Mapping Service. This service consolidates credentials for SFU services such as the NFS client and server, allowing administrators to map Windows users and groups to Unix users and groups. The service allows one-to-one and one-to-many mappings of users and groups to accommodate scenarios when membership of one group is not the same on both systems. Improvements to the user mapping service include improved multilanguage support.

Server for Network Information System (NIS). NIS is a naming and directory service for Unix developed by Sun Microsystems. Microsoft's SFU includes a server for NIS, which enables Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) to provide directory services to Unix NIS-based networks. For example, an organization can now use SFU to set up a Windows 2000 Server as the NIS master server, migrate its existing NIS accounts to that server, and consolidate all authentications across both platforms into the AD service. There is also support for password synchronization, which allows a user to have the same logon ID and password across all the systems. However, this implementation does not support single sign-on: although multiple systems can recognize a single ID and password, users must still reenter the ID and password when they access a server on a different platform. The main improvement to the NIS Server in SFU 3.0 is support for the MD5 hashing algorithm.

Telnet service. SFU includes a Telnet client that allows Windows users to connect (create a terminal session) to a Unix server and a Telnet server that allows Unix users to connect with Windows servers. With SFU 3.0, both the Telnet client and server include support for Internet Protocol version 6.

Availability and Resources

Windows Services for Unix version 3.0 has been tested for interoperability with Sun Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 10.2 and 11, IBM AIX 4.3.3, and Red Hat Linux 7.0. It runs on Windows NT 4.0 (Workstation and Server) with Service Pack 6.a or higher, Windows 2000 (Professional and Server), and Windows XP Professional, and it should work with the still unreleased Windows .NET Server.

For more information on Windows Services for Unix, see www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu.

For the Microsoft case study on the migration of Hotmail from Unix to Windows, see www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/case/hotmail/default.asp.

A trial version of Windows Services for Unix is available at www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/productinfo/trial/default.asp.

Customers can order Windows Services for Unix at shop.microsoft.com/Referral/ProductInfo.asp?siteID=11269.