[Samba] Old, reliable samba 3.5 and Active directory suddenly not reliable

[Robert M. Martel - CSU]

Greetings,

I have an elderly installation of Samba 3.5.8 running on 10 Sparc 
servers (and 3.5.12 on Solaris 9 servers with the same issue)  set up as 
Active Directory member servers.  Since we've laid-off everyone else 
around here I have not had the opportunity to update the Samba 
installation - and have not needed to as it has been very solid.

Suddenly last Friday the Samba servers started having authentication 
problems for the active directory users.  Users were unable to map 
drives, looking at files on the server I was seeing UID numbers rather 
that the user's login ID for the files.  Stopping and restarting Samba 
did not help.

I took the machines out of Active Directory, and then re-added them - 
which they did without a problem.  After restarting Samba all was well, 
for awhile.

This morning some folks that had left themselves looked in over the 
weekend were okay, but others could not map their drives.  interactive 
logins for AD users did not work.  I again left and rejoined the AD 
domain and all was well for a bit, then I had to repeat the cycle.

I do not maintain or have access to the Active Directory servers or 
configuration.  The central IT people claim that they have not made any 
changes to the AD servers...but they don't always tell me the whole truth.

I am building Samba 3.5.18 right now in the hope that it will make a 
difference.

I've never had a problem like this since first "playing" with Samba and 
Active directory more than 5 years ago - and certainly no issue like 
this since putting it into production.
-- 
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Robert M. Martel                 I met someone who looks a lot like you
System Administrator             She does the things you do
Levin College of Urban Affairs   But she is an IBM
Cleveland State University                           -Jeff Lynne
(216) 687-2214
r.martel at csuohio.edu
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