[Samba] Simple question about netbios name and workgroup, in smb.conf

[Ricardo Campos]

Hi, all. I need some help.

I've installed samba 4.4 in a SuSE 42.2,  years ago and it was still
running smoothly till weeks ago. It is still running but new windows
machines and old ones that were updated with some Microsoft software could
not enter the domain because of a sort of loss of confidence error.

Well, I was called to solve the problem. It seemed to me that the better
way to do it was to install the new version of samba (4.19.0) which was
said to correct the issue. I'm exactly at this point.

I installed it, and openldap, in a Ubuntu 22.04 LTS box, from source and
started some tests, but I couldn't go far enough because smbd finds errors:

[2023/09/25 13:56:40.683717,  0]
../../source3/passdb/pdb_ldap_util.c:313(smbldap_search_domain_info)
  smbldap_search_domain_info: Adding domain info for *NEWATENA* failed with
NT_STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL
[2023/09/25 13:56:40.683755,  0]
../../source3/passdb/pdb_ldap.c:6716(pdb_ldapsam_init_common)
  pdb_init_ldapsam: WARNING: Could not get domain info, nor add one to the
domain. We cannot work reliably without it.
[2023/09/25 13:56:40.683769,  0]
../../source3/passdb/pdb_interface.c:182(make_pdb_method_name)
  pdb backend ldapsam:ldap://127.0.0.1 did not correctly init (error was
NT_STATUS_CANT_ACCESS_DOMAIN_INFO)

A piece of the smb.conf file follows:

    server max protocol = NT1
    #
    preserve case = no
    time server = yes
    inherit acls = yes
    nt acl support = yes
    netbios name = *newatena*
    netbios aliases = newatena
    inherit permissions = yes
    printing = cups
    logon script = logon.bat
    dos charset = iso-8859-1
    local master = yes
    workgroup = *FUTURO*
    os level = 33

Both newatena and FUTURO are temporary names, since I still have the samba
4.4 running.

With slapcat we can see this (partial) entry:

dn: sambaDomainName=*FUTURO*,dc=xxxx,dc=xxx,dc=xx
sambaDomainName: *FUTURO*
sambaAlgorithmicRidBase: 1000
sambaNextUserRid: 1000
sambaMinPwdLength: 5
structuralObjectClass: sambaDomain

My simple question is this: why would samba asks for a domain using
the *netbios
name* instead of the *workgroup*?

If you need more information, please ask.

Thanks for any help.

Ricardo