[Samba] samba in a WAN

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> We have a NT4 Domain in our mainoffice.
> Now we have to install servers all over germany. 
> (About 20 locations) The offices are connectet over DSL/VPN.
> We think about using samba to have a stable and inexpensive solution.
> Is there a solution to use samba over a wide area network?

I'm not clear on what you mean,  we have a single Samba domain over
fifteen locations connected by a combination of point-to-point cricuits,
frame-relay, and ISDN.  If your TCP/IP infrastructure is solid
implementing Samba is quite painless.

> We have alraedy one standalone samba-domain (domain-logons with
> machine-accounts) in a small office in Berlin.
> It works fine and makes no Problems.
> What kind of problems we have to face, if we want to install samba servers
> connectet only over DSL/VPN to the "mother" in our mainoffice.
> Whats about:
> - authentication
> - broken connections to the domain

BDC's (or multiple PDCs) and LDAP.

> - single point of administration

LDAP

> - login scripts

Login scripts work the same as with a Windows DC.

> - dhcp/dns

LDAP (Both ISC DHCP and BIND - as shipped with SuSe 9.2 - support an
LDAP backend instead of zonefiles, etc...)

> we are working at this time with MS. So we have not the best practice in
> Linux/samba. We have to learn a lot. (also english:-))

Best practices are the same as with Windows,  where to put DC's, how
many users per DC, etc...  Just the technologies are a little different.