[Samba] PDC with XP Clients, logon timeouts

[Mark Rutherford]

Hi everybody,

I am attempting to switch 2 networks from Netware servers to Samba 
configured as a domain controller.
1 network that is less critical became the 'guinea pig' network.
It is the one I am currently working to get the kinks out of.

We like the Samba servers a lot more than we liked the Netware servers, 
they are much faster.

So far I have 2 Linux machines running 3.0.10, We have been using this 
version for awhile now.
The intended goal is to have a backup server in case of a failure of any 
kind on the primary server.
Other services on the network are a firewall, also Linux and it is 
running a caching DNS server (Bind), Etc.

I am struggling with a few things.
So, here is my problem:

1. Logon issues.
Random machines on the network get a message to the effect that they 
cannot locate a domain controller.
If you wait a minute or two and try again, you can login just fine. 
Users really hate that.

I have tried adding SRV entries and such, and it does not seem to do 
anything.
The SRV issue is probably beyond the scope of this list, but any 
pointers would be helpful.
I have 2 entries:
_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.Maunz. SRV 0 0 389 memaster.
_kerberos._tcp.dc._msdcs.Maunz. SRV 0 0 88 memaster.

And the A record:
memaster                IN      A       192.168.0.201

Now, I have one last question...
When the master fails for whatever reason, and the second one is now the 
only controller around..
Can the network clients authenticate against it and continue to use it?
I am currently using rsync to keep the machines mirrored, this happens 
every 5 minutes.
So, at worst our data is 5 minutes old (an acceptable loss in our case)

The master server does not start up on its own when the machine boots in 
the event of a failure, just for this reason.
the services must manually start because we don't want to mirror our now 
'old' data on top of what we have
on the secondary controller.
I copy the passwd and user files from one to another.
these machines are virtually the same, so it works just fine.

I appreciate any help I can get on the login problem.

-Mark