[Samba] what architecture is required for having a samba working ?

[Gaiseric Vandal]

I don't think DNS dynamic updates is required for Windows clients.  
Windows clients do not provide services (in most cases) so they don't 
need to be located in DNS/AD.  I found, when running BIND9 as my primary 
DNS server that I  did not like the why DDNS updated and resorted my 
zone files.  I didn't like having files with static entries being 
changed by the server.

Actually, you don't absolutely need Dynamic DNS for servers.   When a 
machine joins the domain as a domain controller it does try to update 
DNS-  but if it can't it will write the required changes to a text file 
(don't remember which off the top of my head but the event log will tell 
you.    I have a mixed environment of Samba 3 PDC domains  and Windows 
AD domains.  I found it easiest to make one of my Windows machines the 
DNS server and only enable DDNS while  adding/removing a DC to the domain.


I have not used samba 4-  since it is still listed an Alpha.


Samba 3 does support domain trusts with Windows domains-  so if you have 
little pockets already running Windows AD domains, you can still work 
with them.


I think the one question you need to ask is:  what is the cost of 
implementing AD  vs what is the cost of my time to make samba work?    I 
run a mix of windows and linux clients, so samba is a good solution for 
me since the underlying servers also support NFS, LDAP and other stuff 
that plays nice with linux clients.    But I wish Samba 3 did have GPO 
support.       You can use "NT4" type policies so some degree with Samba 
3.  You can even create policy templates  to implement specific registry 
changes-  but it is a pain.  I am hoping to see if I can use a Windows 
DC as an LDAP/Keberos master for my environment, while keeping 
Samba/Unix servers as file servers, but leveraging some of the stuff 
that Windows AD does do well.






On 04/07/2011 09:18 AM, Valéry Roché wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> Replying to myself concerning DNSupdates. I found this :
> "If you are joining Samba4 to an existing Windows DNS domain, or you 
> are using a Windows DNS server instead of bind9, then you need bind 
> version 9.7.2rc1 (or higher) for the nsupdate command to correctly 
> work with recent versions of Windows. If you don't have bind 9.7.2rc1 
> or better, recent Windows clients (such as Windows7 and Win2K8) won't 
> be able to do dynamic DNS updates to your bind9 server, and bind9 
> won't be able to do dynamic DNS updates against a Windows DNS server."
> (https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO)
>
> That should do the work, will try it if I can find some explanations 
> on how to setup Bind9 in this way.
>
> Kind regards,
> Valéry Roché
>