Samba PDC and WinNT BDC

[Peter Samuelson]

[Vern Gill]
> That is a (IMNSHO) stupid answer. Obviously this person has a need,
> possibly outside of his control, that he use an nt box that acts as a
> dc. To give the answer "Linux Rocks, Windows Sucks", or even your
> equivalent answer, just wastes time and disk space.

I think the answer was not so much "windows sux, linux rocks" as the
Gatesian dictum "One domain controller ought to be enough for anybody".

Your concern is valid, though - no matter how good Samba/Unix/Linux
might be, some organisations have a need for DC redundancy.  Load
balancing is one reason, proximity (one DC at each end of the WAN) is
another.  The sorry fact is, Samba-TNG does not really support BDC
operation either as the PDC or the BDC.  Specifically, it does not
support the "partial update" notifications from the PDC when the SAM
changes.

So you *can* set up TNG as either PDC or BDC in such a relationship,
but you'll have to force a SAM sync every now and then.  If TNG is the
BDC, it's the rpcclient command 'samsync'; if NT is the BDC, you need
to restart some service (probably 'smss.exe', but I'm not sure) or
reboot.

Peter