Setting up PDC and BDC using Samba

[Mike Brodbelt]

Gerry Kirk wrote:
> 
> Is this possible? Can I use Samba 2.0.x or do I need TNG? I think I saw an
> email back from someone who suggested that the only difference between a
> PDC and a BDC is that the BDC references the PDC as the password server. 

Not true - both BDC's and PDC's (in the NT world) have local copies of
the SAM, and can authenticate from them. The difference is that the PDC
is considered the authoritative source of the data, and the BDC's
replicate with it. It's actually very similar to how DNS servers deal
with zone transfers.

> My
> question to that is what if the PDC is down? The BDC should be able to take
> over the responsibilities of the PDC.

Both the PDC and any BDC's register a special netbios node type for the
domain they serve. Clients that need to authenticate look up this name,
and authenticate off whoever responds first. In the absence of a PDC,
the clients will just all go to the BDC's, as the PDC will no longer
respond.

Samba 2.0 can act as a PDC for NT4, but only in a limited manner. Many
NT RPC's aren't supported, and many NT tools will fail. The 2.0 branch
has *no* support for PDC-BDC replication. TNG has far more domain
controller support, and can (I think) do the  BDC stuff.

HTH

Mike.