Hacker News: marenkay

New comment by marenkay in "Ask HN: Self-hosted AD/Entra ID alternative that works with Windows and Linux?"

marenkay — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 04:12:16 +0000

Fair point - Microsoft has definitely made it easier for cross-platform deployment with Entra ID, and for many orgs the F3 license math works out.

May I ask, has the fact that the data and service is under US residency and subject to US laws ever been an issue for you? That's the niche I'm trying to understand - whether it's big enough to matter or just an odd edge case.

New comment by marenkay in "Ask HN: Self-hosted AD/Entra ID alternative that works with Windows and Linux?"

marenkay — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:10:22 +0000

That's the plan. I still have to figure out a lot but it's fun!

New comment by marenkay in "Ask HN: Self-hosted AD/Entra ID alternative that works with Windows and Linux?"

marenkay — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:01:50 +0000

Thanks! I sure will, its my first own rack in a new data centre actually :-) kinda a long-term member of the homelab movement

New comment by marenkay in "Ask HN: Self-hosted AD/Entra ID alternative that works with Windows and Linux?"

marenkay — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:16:13 +0000

Honestly, I wish I could stick with LDAP forever, it just worked. But no. My first setup in 2004 was OpenLDAP all the way for every service.

I am moving to a new server over Christmas, thanks for telling though :-)

Ask HN: Self-hosted AD/Entra ID alternative that works with Windows and Linux?

marenkay — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 09:25:36 +0000

I'm working on an open-source identity platform (Rust, AD-compatible, native OIDC) and trying to figure out whether this is a real problem or something I've convinced myself matters.

The idea is: replace Microsoft AD/Entra ID with something you can self-host, that handles Windows domain join AND Linux login AND modern auth protocols.

Current options seem to be:

- stay with Microsoft AD (the original beast) - Samba AD (works but painful, no modern protocols) - UCS/Zentyal (wrap Samba, heavyweight) - Keycloak/Authentik/etc (no Windows domain support)

My questions:

- How do you handle identity across Windows and Linux today? Is it painful? - Have you actually looked for alternatives, or is AD "good enough"? - Would sovereignty/self-hosting be a important for you, or is that just talk?

I am having a lot of fun building and using this but I severely wonder if this is just a me problem. Help a guy out? :-)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46310562

Points: 2

# Comments: 8

New comment by marenkay in "German government comes out against Chat Control"

marenkay — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 04:11:47 +0000

Stay vigilant. Our German conservatives will repeat the process to restrict our human rights over and over until it slips through the cracks.

It's funny how politicians want laws against issues for which they usually are the guilty party.

New comment by marenkay in "SAP splashes €20B on Euro sovereign cloud push"

marenkay — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 15:57:34 +0000

1. I find it hard to call this a sovereign cloud. This is still Azure - albeit with the crown jewels cut out - in a different dress. Did they verify there is nothing inside that Azure stack enabling calls home? 2. SAP itself is not sovereign, they're a MS shop. 3. They are no fast movers, they move short-term through acquisitions only. 4. Change is not a thing you would associate with SAP 5. A company that bungles 200 million EUR for running smartphone app for handful of years is not gonna get far with 20 billion EUR.

Sorry but the ones with the money in the bank are not the ones who will actually be concerned or capable of working towards sovereignty because its opposed to their income source.

New comment by marenkay in "How well does the money laundering control system work?"

marenkay — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:44:39 +0000

Systems against money laundering only work against average Joe/Jane. Really wealthy people just make a deal with a bank of their choice and launder money legally.

New comment by marenkay in "GenAI FOMO has spurred businesses to light nearly $40B on fire"

marenkay — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:12:53 +0000

The wonderful thing about money is: its roots are only in belief, not in fact. If you get a sufficient amount of money users to believe pink colored dog poop has more value than a diamond, than it has.

The entire shtick is made up. People just tend to forget this too quick.

New comment by marenkay in "Run your GitHub Actions locally"

marenkay — Tue, 20 May 2025 00:17:00 +0000

Have you ever use any of those in a realistic scenario? Any existing CI/CD solution is broken like hell and if you try to do more advanced stuff like reusing templates or actions, all hell breaks lose. Don't get me started on clones via SSH, doing commits from pipelines, etc.

CI/CD is one of the topics that is barely solved or usable ...

New comment by marenkay in "Getting forked by Microsoft"

marenkay — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 14:54:36 +0000

In reality executives are responsible when the company is doing well. When mistakes happen it is either handled by insurance or by firing an employee who was only partially involved.

New comment by marenkay in "Homeless in Colorado may sleep in their cars if they have a job"

marenkay — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 03:44:55 +0000

That remark about blue states is pretty meaningless. Red states do much worse.

You could simplify the whole post by to express that any state or political party in the US is abhorrent to the citizens.

The only significant or interesting thing might be why certain focus areas actually provide a little bit for citizens.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 09:04:59 +0000

Finally someone might get that the concept of a free market is a fairy tale

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 09:04:13 +0000

If a product becomes unstable due to increased competition it's not exactly been stable before. Also the whole premium is quite off. You got good items for fair prices before factories started producing bread. Often at higher quality. I'm old enough to remember. Honestly seems like the current market is only working because of regulation and protections of all kinds. That to me is a clear sign of volatility.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 06:39:31 +0000

Considering I talked about a truly free market, central planning then seems to be a weird reaction. Why would that be related? It's not like I suggested a Chinese system, I advocated for one which is free from monopoly and focusses on local production and diversity for sourcing goods.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:11:12 +0000

But I think we're missing an important point here: moving production to low cost environments just moves costs from business costs into external costs, putting them on society.

As for productivity, I think that's an issue that could be addressed but people generally avoid the answer to the why question.

New comment by marenkay in "Whistleblower tells senators that Meta undermined U.S. security, interests"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:51:27 +0000

The special kind of freedom that is limited to one specific group of people. See recent events for reference.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:39:08 +0000

Not really. The opposite. The current market is centralized a lot more than people want to see or admit. I had trust in the free market for a long time but it has not really materialized the best results. As can be seen by the current state of affairs. Everyone fighting over who gets to have money and production is not freedom, it's a war without guns.

Just to make this clear, a truly free market would be desirable but I don't see it materialize on this world.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:26:26 +0000

This makes a good argument against centralized production and knowledge. It would economically be much more reasonable if any good could be produced anywhere at any time. Smaller production facilities for localized sourcing. Would IMHO also be much more in line with a free market. Everyone would be free to source goods in any country or location of their choice. Coupled with open knowledge this could be a truly free market.

But will never happen because currently free market means one business is free to dominate and control a market.

New comment by marenkay in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

marenkay — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:21:07 +0000

Hasn't that point already been reached given the US could not sustain itself in any reasonable way without Chinese labor and knowledge?

There seem to be a lot of companies in the S&P500 that would dry out without access to Chinese workers and goods. Just take cloud providers. Where is their gear sourced from? Is there any realistic chance to provide that from within the US? Given the current state that would become necessary but seems highly unlikely to be achievable.