Joining samba4 to domain as PDC

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Sun, 2011-01-02 at 18:17 -0600, Michael Wichers wrote:
> setting up
> the configuration for dynamic DNS manually will be fiddly, but not
> impossible).
> 
> I do not mind attempting this, but what about the primary domain
> controller?  

You keep talking about the PDC, but this concept just doesn't exist in
the same way in AD.  Perhaps read some introductory documentation on how
a Microsoft AD domain works, as this will help you understand the
landscape better. 

> If I'm put in a situation where I have a domain, and the only dc
> existing for this domain is a backup dc, and it holds all of the
> information for the domain, is it possible to bring up a new box as a
> new primary dc for this existing domain, or am i stuck with a domain,
> I can no longer join new devices/usernames to?

Firstly, because Active Directory is multi-master, you can always join
new devices and add users to it, no matter if any of the FSMO (flexible
single master operation) role owners are down.  

However, some operations do require that certain FSMO role owners be
online, and so you can 'steal' a role away from a permanently offline
DC.  

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team           http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Cisco Inc.