{"slug": "freeipa", "name": "FreeIPA", "category": "security", "category_name": "Security and passwords", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.654, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2026-01-13", "latest": "2026-06-25", "why": "Those are both excellent pieces of software we are lucky to have.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Those are both excellent pieces of software we are lucky to have.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.freeipa.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["FreeIPA"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 752985536, "item_id": 47061596, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061596", "by": "dijit", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to use it with Exchange and it worked pretty well", "excerpt": "Doesn't FreeIPA work with EntraID? I used to use it with Exchange and it worked pretty well.. (or, as well as any non-microsoft product that has to intergrate with Microsoft products at least).", "context": "", "use_case": "Identity integration with Exchange", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM"}, {"id": 752966149, "item_id": 47060384, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060384", "by": "cullumsmith", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The \"ipa\" command provided by FreeIPA for managing users/groups/etc is super convenient though.", "excerpt": "Nice. I run a very similar setup, but opted for a stack of OpenLDAP / MIT Kerberos / PowerDNS on my \"domain controllers.\" OpenLDAP does multimaster replication and is the backend for DNS records and the Kerberos database. The hardest part was figuring out OpenLDAPs configuration syntax, especially the correct ldif incantations for things like nested group memberOf= queries, schemas, and ACLs. It's somewhat inscrutabl", "context": "", "use_case": "managing users and groups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM"}, {"id": 749993426, "item_id": 46874589, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874589", "by": "tenacious_tuna", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Domain-style logins are handled by FreeIPA.", "excerpt": "> Households have shared computers. I have about five Fedora desktops running in my house that I share with my partners. Domain-style logins are handled by FreeIPA. Basic login with the KDE Fedora spin works great. I've been meaning to set up auto-mounting network shares and such, but haven't gotten around to it; but the login management is very convenient and we use every day.", "context": "", "use_case": "Domain logins", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE Plasma Login Manager Won't Support systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems"}, {"id": 745588547, "item_id": 46599284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599284", "by": "davkan", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Those are both excellent pieces of software we are lucky to have.", "excerpt": "Okd was a mess when i tried to use it years ago. The documentation was just a 1:1 copy-paste of openshift docs despite significant differences in installation. It really wanted you to use OLM but the upstream operators like maestra (the istio based upstream of redhat service mesh) were often very out of date in the catalog to the point of being incompatible with the current version of okd. I raised the issue on GitHu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gentoo Linux 2025 Review"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "whalesalad", "context": "homelab user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680588", "date": "2026-06-25"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["domain policy for homelab", "identity integration with exchange", "managing users and groups", "domain logins"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47059520", "title": "Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679385", "title": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870751", "title": "KDE Plasma Login Manager Won't Support systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574769", "title": "Gentoo Linux 2025 Review", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 778889411, "item_id": 48680588, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680588", "by": "whalesalad", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "domain-joined Ubuntu/ZFS box that inherits a lot of policy from FreeIPA and/or Ansible config", "excerpt": "I haven't abandoned Proxmox yet, but the take here resonates with me. I do not like configuring appliances. I prefer defining infra as code, having that diffable, assertable, etc. I have had pretty good luck managing Proxmox clusters with the Proxmox API (https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer/index.html) or just letting the agent shell in as root (lol). I built a very simple provisioning tool called vmfactory t", "context": "homelab user", "use_case": "domain policy for homelab", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus"}, {"id": 752985536, "item_id": 47061596, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061596", "by": "dijit", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to use it with Exchange and it worked pretty well", "excerpt": "Doesn't FreeIPA work with EntraID? I used to use it with Exchange and it worked pretty well.. (or, as well as any non-microsoft product that has to intergrate with Microsoft products at least).", "context": "", "use_case": "Identity integration with Exchange", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM"}, {"id": 752966149, "item_id": 47060384, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060384", "by": "cullumsmith", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The \"ipa\" command provided by FreeIPA for managing users/groups/etc is super convenient though.", "excerpt": "Nice. I run a very similar setup, but opted for a stack of OpenLDAP / MIT Kerberos / PowerDNS on my \"domain controllers.\" OpenLDAP does multimaster replication and is the backend for DNS records and the Kerberos database. The hardest part was figuring out OpenLDAPs configuration syntax, especially the correct ldif incantations for things like nested group memberOf= queries, schemas, and ACLs. It's somewhat inscrutabl", "context": "", "use_case": "managing users and groups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM"}, {"id": 749993426, "item_id": 46874589, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874589", "by": "tenacious_tuna", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Domain-style logins are handled by FreeIPA.", "excerpt": "> Households have shared computers. I have about five Fedora desktops running in my house that I share with my partners. Domain-style logins are handled by FreeIPA. Basic login with the KDE Fedora spin works great. I've been meaning to set up auto-mounting network shares and such, but haven't gotten around to it; but the login management is very convenient and we use every day.", "context": "", "use_case": "Domain logins", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE Plasma Login Manager Won't Support systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems"}, {"id": 745588547, "item_id": 46599284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599284", "by": "davkan", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Those are both excellent pieces of software we are lucky to have.", "excerpt": "Okd was a mess when i tried to use it years ago. The documentation was just a 1:1 copy-paste of openshift docs despite significant differences in installation. It really wanted you to use OLM but the upstream operators like maestra (the istio based upstream of redhat service mesh) were often very out of date in the catalog to the point of being incompatible with the current version of okd. I raised the issue on GitHu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gentoo Linux 2025 Review"}]}