Moving from Workgroup model to Domain

[Mike Brodbelt]

"Tom R Haws (PG)" wrote:

> I have a couple of questions to the gurus in the list regarding this transition:
> 
> 1.  Is the Samba PDC model fully implemented?  How do you administer domain
> users, via SWAT?

No. Samba 2.0.7 has limited PDC functionality for NT4 clients. Samba 2.2
expands this to cover Win2000 clients also. Samba TNG has fuller PDC
fuctionality, but has now become a code fork with a slightly different
direction.
 
> 2.  If so, how do SAM database replications happen?  With NT 4.0, the PDC and
> BDC's exchange user account information automagically.  Does this mechanism
> exist in Samba?

Samba does not yet support PDC->BDC replication, tough judicious use of
Unix utilities could be used to fake something up. This support is
slated for Samba 3.0.
 
> 3.  Would a Wintel PDC with Samba BDC's be better?  I'm used to using User
> Manager for Domains to administer local and global groups on all servers.  How
> would I do that with Samba BDC's?

Possibly. You could use Wintel PDC/BDC's. Then you could serve files
from Samba with security=domain. This is bad because you need to
authenticate from Windows, and with MS's latest license policy, you get
badly screwed over. It's a good way to go if you have windows and wish
to get rid of it, but if you don't have windows servers, it's not as
attractive an option.

If you set up a Samba DC with the existing stable code, you will lose
User Manager/Server Manager, and similar MS tools. Stable Samba does not
yet support the RPC calls these applications need.
 
> 4.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask these questions.  Is there a white
> paper anywhere to check this out?

I believe there's some useful information at
http://bioserve.latrobe.edu.au/samba but I can't check it, as Australia
has dropped off the net for me right now...

HTH,

Mike