[Samba] NT4-Samba Migration Test Results

[Larry Liu]

John,

We previously corresponded on our testing of Samba 3.0.0 RC4. Since
then,
we have downloaded the Samba 3.0.0 Release version for testing with some

interesting results.

The Setup
Major Networks: Solaris (NIS), Windows Native NT4 Domain

Our Test Plan
We are testing Samba 3.0 as a candidate for replacing the old NT4
Domain.
Being a complex production networking environment, we replicated the
networking scenario for testing in our lab.

Current Test Results:

Test 1:
passwd backend = smbpasswd

First,  we followed your instructions in Chapter 31 of the Samba HOWTO
Collection. When we ran the exact syntax for "net rpc vampire",  no
accounts
migrated from the NT4 PDC to our Samba v3.0 Samba PDC running on
Solaris.

Test 2:
passwd backend = smbpasswd
Problem Resolution:

We imported all the NIS accounts and NT4 machine accounts into the local

account database of the Solaris server.  Then, we ran "net rpc vampire"
again.
This time only 2620 of our 5000+ NT4 accounts migrated.

After choking, the following error message was generated:

[2003/09/29 12:36:51, 0]
utils/net_rpc_samsync.c:fetch_group_mem_info(591)
  Could not find global group 512
[2003/09/29 12:36:51, 0]
utils/net_rpc_samsync.c:fetch_group_mem_info(591)
  Could not find global group 513
Failed to fetch domain database: NT code 0x00000001

Test 3:
passwd backend = tdbsam
Problem Resolution:

We reread your Chapter 11 Part III Advanced Configuration documentation
from May 24, 2003 and the tdbsam password backend looked interesting.
Although it warned that it should be limited to <250 accounts, we
decided to
try it. It ran perfectly! All 5000+ NT4 accounts migrated.

We tested NT4 and Win2K machine accounts  and user logins. All were
good,
no extra configuration required.


Comments
Vampire is very cool indeed! Perhaps there have been changes in the
password
backends since the May 24th documentation. However, smbpasswd didn't
work
in our tests and tdbsam did.

Questions

1. We are inquiring if there are any warnings or known gotcha's with the
tdbsam
or any updates to the smbpasswd? If there are no issues we will likely
use the
tdbsam scenario for our actual production NT4 migration.

2. We invented the part about pre-importing the NIS and machine accounts
into the
local OS. Does that sound like a best practice, or is there a better
way?


So far, so good. Samba 3 is pretty cool...
We are looking forward to your thoughts and comments on the 2 questions.



Larry Liu
Robert Inerbickler

NT Migration Team
Sun Microsystems