Moving from Workgroup model to Domain

[Odhiambo Washington]

* Tom R Haws (PG) <trh at timberline.ca> [20001019 00:24]:
=>Hi,
=>
=>I have recently taken over administration of a Samba installation.  I have 
=>experience administering a 5000-node NT domain (actually lots of domains, with 
=>trusts), and I am experienced in administering Solaris, but Samba is new to me, 
=>so I've subscribed to this mail list to try to get up to speed.  It's a great 
=>list, and the level of support is fantastic, especially to Samba newbies like 
=>me.
=>
=>We have 5 Samba 2.0.5a servers on Solaris 2.7 (with NIS+ on the Solaris side, 
=>but no connection between smbpasswd and the NIS maps), each serving about 50 NT 
=>4.0 clients, with a couple of Win98 notebooks at each site.  We are currently 
=>operating in Security = User mode, because it was the simplest to implement, but 
=>it is a pain to administer, because people have to be manually added to each 
=>server if they want to access resources on a that server.
=>
=>We now have a nice 10MBit WAN connection between all the sites, so I would like 
=>to move to a single Domain model, to make administration much simpler.  We would 
=>install the latest version of Samba when we go to make the transition, and would 
=>take that time to get all the NT clients up SP 6.0a.
=>
=>I have a couple of questions to the gurus in the list regarding this transition:
=>
=>1.  Is the Samba PDC model fully implemented?  How do you administer domain 
=>users, via SWAT?
=>
=>2.  If so, how do SAM database replications happen?  With NT 4.0, the PDC and 
=>BDC's exchange user account information automagically.  Does this mechanism 
=>exist in Samba?
=>
=>3.  Would a Wintel PDC with Samba BDC's be better?  I'm used to using User 
=>Manager for Domains to administer local and global groups on all servers.  How 
=>would I do that with Samba BDC's?
=>
=>4.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask these questions.  Is there a white 
=>paper anywhere to check this out?
=>
=>I appreciate any help this group has to offer on these questions.
=>
=>-Thanks,
=>-Tom


Since you're new to Samba the best favor you can do yourself is to get a
copy of the book "Using SAMBA" by Robert Eckstein/David
Collier-Brown/Peter Kelly. It is published by O'reilly.
Before you get the $34.95 you can also look at it online at
http://sunsite.auc.dk/samba/oreilly/using_samba/
Also look at the FAQs.

HTH

-Wash

--
Odhiambo Washington  Inter-Connect Ltd.,
wash at iconnect.co.ke  5th Flr Furaha Plaza
Tel: 254 11 222604   Nkrumah Rd.,
Fax: 254 11 222636   PO Box 83613 MOMBASA, KENYA.

By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers 
in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. -P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 
1988, April Fool's column.