NetServerEnum2 and looking for dc

[Steven French]

That function was meant to find primary domain controllers not just any
logon server (although the function is slightly less useful in Windows 2000
since all domain controllers are primary domain controllers - no more
BDCs).  Although it may have been used by a pam module (which is now
obsolete) which looked for PDCs first (then failing that - look for backup
domain controllers), there really were cases in the NT and OS/2 world (ie
when not using active directory APIs) where you had to find the primary
domain controller - so you could determine the correct target of certain
RPC and RAP calls (like "NetUserAdd" and "NetUserDelete" for example) that
needed to go to the primary and would fail to backup domain controllers or
additional servers.

Steve French
Senior Software Engineer
Linux Technology Center - IBM Austin
phone: 512-838-2294
email: sfrench at us.ibm.com


Jim McDonough
02/10/2002 06:29 PM

To:    Rafal Szczesniak <mimir at diament.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>
cc:    samba-technical at samba.org, Steven French/Austin/IBM
From:  Jim McDonough/Portland/IBM at IBMUS
Subject:    Re: NetServerEnum2 and looking for dc  (Document link: Steven
       French)

Rafal Szczesniak wrote:
>While working on trusted domains, I've noticed that cli_get_pdc_name
>function (libsmb/clirap2.c) using NetServerEnum2 call looks only for
>Primary Domain Controller and not for Backup Domain Controller.
>
>Is it on purpose or just forgotten ?
Well, ahem, umm, well, uhhh....

This is a function that never gets called...er...ummm

The best explanation I can give is: it was for some other work we were
doing, didn't finish, but I don't quite remember what it was anymore.

That aside, since it's "cli_get_pdc_name", I'd say it was intentionally
only looking for a PDC.  If you'd like to modify it to look for PDCs and
BDCs,  have fun!  Otherwise we should probably remove it.

Steve, do you have any recollection?

----------------------------
Jim McDonough
IBM Linux Technology Center
Samba Team
6 Minuteman Drive
Scarborough, ME 04074
USA

jmcd at us.ibm.com
jmcd at samba.org

Phone: (207) 885-5565
IBM tie-line: 776-9984