[Samba] Re: Migrating from NT4 to Samba/LDAP - Demoting PDC to domain member

[Alan Dodd]

Ian Clancy wrote:
> Hello All,
> I'm looking for some advice \ shared past experiences of users on the list.
> I am in the process of planning a migration from an existing NT Domain to
> a Samba 3 / LDAP based domain. However, the existing NT4 PDC is also home
> to our Exchange 5.5 email server which we would like to keep in service.
> I imagine what i need to do is add the old NT4 PDC server to the new Samba
> Domain once i have completed the migration. I am not sure how to do this
> ?. I have found this software (U Promote ) at
> http://www.purenetworking.net/Products/UPromote/UPromote.htm that may do
> the trick.
> Has anyone out there performed a task similar to this or used this product
> ? or is it even necessary. Is there another (free) way ?.
> Thanks,
> Ian Clancy

UPromote worked flawlessly on a machine with NT4 SP6 and Oracle (no 
exchange server), demoting it from PDC when I set up new domain with 
samba PDC, 50 users.
It was -much- easier and faster then having to call the Oracle staff to 
perform a complete re-install of Oracle after having re-installed NT4!
We had a down time of approx 15 minutes.
For safety, beforehand I performed a mirror backup of the system HD just 
in case anything went wrong.
We bought a license of upromote specific to one server (it is bound to 
the server name).
Note that the NT4 was just installed as PDC in the first place, but no 
workstation was joined to its domain, the network up to that moment was 
peer to peer.
Now we have roaming profiles, netlogons etc, but this was all done AFTER 
demoting the NT server, and only with samba, so I don't know if there 
could be issues specific to upromote in un-joining the workstations from 
your NT4 PDC, and I have no experience of exchange.
Also note that the domain name I gave to the new samba server was 
different from the old domain name of the NT4 PDC - to be on the safe side.

Hope this helps
With regards,
Alan Dodd