[Samba] Re: Replacing Samba PDC with new hardware

[Dragan Krnic]

| What is the best way to make the switch without
| making the current user accounts obsolete?

Copy all shares to the new server. The tar is OK, but
take care of the ACLs if you use them. Copy all 
user/group databases, copy /etc/samba directory,
give the new server the same name and IP addres
the old one had and start samba. Just like you planned.

| I've duplicated the most of the environment already, 
| my users accounts have already been added to 
| /etc/passwd, /etc/group. I set up smb.conf, the 
| homes and netlogon share. I copied the logon.bat 
| file I've been using from the old box, and added 
| all my users and machine accounts to the smbpasswd 
| file as usual. Now as far as the SID I'm a little 
| fuzzy. I would ideally like the replacement server 
| to have the same netbios name (SERVER) as the de-
| commissioned machine. For the moment I 've given 
| the new box the name (NEW_SERVER) so that I can copy 
| files over. I ran smbpasswd -S (domain) to suck the 
| SID to the new server already. Now when I shut down 
| the old box for good, and change the netbios name 
| will the SID for the domain be re-written making my 
| user accounts useless/unable to logon? Is there any 
| way to avoid this? Also is there a "better" way to 
| move the users home directories to new box? I was 
| planning on taring up the /home dir and just 
| expanding it on the new machine? Does anyone know 
| if I have all the users logged in, swap out the 
| servers, and log the users out will that send the 
| profile back to the home directory on the new server?

Now I wouldn't really do it while everyone is still 
logged in. Although it is reasonable to expect
that all the shares would reconnect as soon as one
tries to access them, I wouldn't bet that profiles
would just drop back in the desired slots on the
new server. It's possible, but I'd still do it on
a quiet day when noone's watching. Who knows what
else may have gone wrong.

If you really want to pull the carpet from under
everyone's feet without toppling them, at least 
exercise the trick a couple of times on a sunny 
weekend alone if possible.


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