[Samba] PDC help

[Mark Baker]

I'm new to Samba, and I'm having a little trouble; I hope someone can offer 
some advice.

First, I have Samba working at the basic level on my home network, which 
consists of two (sometimes three) Win2k machines and one Red Hat Linux 8.0 
box.  I can mount Windows shares in my Linux filesystem, and I can map Linux 
shares from any of my Windows boxes.  I'm also using two Windows printers 
from my Linux machine.

I'm now trying to use Samba as a domain controller, and that's where I'm 
running into trouble.  First things first; domain logons are actually 
working, at least from the one Windows machine that I've managed to 
successfully add to the domain, and with any of the three domain user 
accounts I've managed to successfully log on with so far.  I'm set up for 
roaming profiles, and that's working too, for the three working domain user 
accounts.  I should point out, however, that adding the first machine and the 
three user accounts was not exactly trouble-free.  When I first attempted to 
join the Windows machine to the domain, it failed several times, then 
suddenly worked for reasons unknown.  One of the three user accounts failed 
to log in a couple of times, then worked.  It seems that once I get a domain 
account to log in successfully the first time, it works fine after that.

At this point, I find myself unable to log in to any new user accounts, and 
unable to join another Windows machine to the domain.  When I try to log in 
to a new user account or add another machine to the domain, I generally get a 
"domain unavailable" error message from Windows, yet I can immediately log in 
to one of the working user accounts without difficulty.  Frequently, after 
restarting the SMB services in Linux, I'll get a "computer account doesn't 
exist or password is incorrect" error message from Windows, even when trying 
to log in to a working user account; but restarting the Windows machine 
generally fixes that.  Sometimes after restarting Windows, I'll get a message 
on the first login that the profile directory couldn't be created (even 
though it already exists); but after that it works fine, at least with the 
three working user accounts.

I'm creating new machine and user accounts, both Unix and SMB, the same way I 
did the successful ones; or at least I think I am.  I've thought long and 
hard about where I could be going wrong, but wherever it is I can't see it.

I've also noted that I can't set Windows permissions for my domain user 
accounts, because Windows apparently can't see the domain accounts.

I have all the machines defined in hosts and lmhosts, in Linux and Windows.  
I've tried it with the Linux box defined as a WINS server on the Win2k 
machines, and without a WINS server; it doesn't seem to make any difference 
either way.  My Linux box is also my DHCP server, which is working fine.

I think I've covered all the symptoms, but if I've left out any tidbit of 
information, please let me know.

Here is a listing of my smb.conf file:

[global]
  netbios name = LINUX1
  workgroup = <domain_name>
  encrypt passwords = yes
  log level = 2
  log file = /etc/samba/samba.log
  admin users = root
  domain logons = yes
  domain master = yes
  logon drive = H:
  logon home = \\linux1\%u
  logon path = \\linux1\profile\%U
  os level = 99
  preferred master = yes
  security = user
  wins support = yes
  hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0
  socket options = TCP_NODELAY

[homes]
  create mask = 0600
  directory mask = 0700
  path = %H
  read only = no
  valid users = %S

[netlogon]
  path = /home/netlogon

[profile]
  create mode = 0600
  directory mode = 0700
  path = /home/profile
  read only = no

[pub]
  path = /home/public
  browseable = yes
  guest ok = yes
  read only = no



Thanks,
Mark Baker