Seamless File Sharing Across Multi Domain/Forest with MoSMB – No AD Trust Needed

In enterprise environments, managing file shares across multiple Active Directory (AD) domains can be a complex challenge. Traditional SMB solutions often struggle with seamless authentication and authorization in multi-domain setups. MoSMB, a high-performance SMB server, is designed to address these challenges by providing robust support for multi-domain scenarios—even when no trust relationships exist between domains.

Challenges in Multi-Domain SMB Environments

Organizations often operate multiple AD domains due to:

1. Mergers and acquisitions
2. Security isolation requirements
3. Geographical or departmental segmentation

In such cases, an SMB server must:

1. Authenticate users across different domains
2. Enforce proper access control policies
3. Maintain seamless file sharing without requiring complex workarounds

MoSMB’s Multi-Domain Capabilities

1. Cross-Domain Authentication Without Trust Relationships

One of MoSMB’s standout features is its ability to authenticate users from different domains without requiring an explicit trust relationship between them. MoSMB supports:

• Kerberos & NTLM Support: MoSMB leverages Kerberos for secure, single sign-on (SSO) authentication and falls back to NTLM when necessary.
• Manual Domain Mapping: Administrators can configure user mappings between independent domains for authentication.

2. Flexible User Mapping & Authorization

MoSMB ensures that users from different domains can access shared resources based on their domain credentials. Key mechanisms include:

• SID-to-UID Mapping: Translates Windows Security Identifiers (SIDs) to Unix User Identifiers (UIDs) for seamless permission enforcement.
• Access Control Lists (ACLs): MoSMB supports fine-grained ACLs to restrict access based on domain-based group memberships.

3. Multi-Domain Name Resolution

To resolve users and groups across multiple domains, MoSMB supports:

• DNS-Based Service Discovery: Uses DNS to locate domain controllers for authentication.

4. Secure and Scalable Multi-Domain Operations

MoSMB ensures security and scalability with:

• SMB Signing and Encryption: Provides robust data protection and mitigates man-in-the-middle attacks.
• Load Balancing & Failover: Works efficiently in distributed environments with redundancy and high availability.

Conclusion

MoSMB’s robust multi-domain support makes it an ideal choice for enterprises with complex AD environments. Unlike traditional SMB solutions, MoSMB operates seamlessly even when there is no trust relationship between domains. Its ability to authenticate users, enforce proper access controls, and integrate with existing security policies ensures reliable and secure file sharing across distributed networks.