[Samba] Must you "net join" for the Samba machine to become a domain member?

[Adam Nielsen]

> The thing is that we already manually added the server to the domain
> (i.e. created a "computer account" for the Samba machine in the domain
> manually using the standard Windows GUI tools). The reason, in my
> case, I believe I have to do a "net join" is to populate the
> "private/secrets.tdb" with some ID of the domain I'm interested in.

When you manually add the server to the domain, the problem is that
Samba doesn't know what the password is.  You can set one with the
'net' command I think, however it's much easier to delete the manually
added computer and run 'net join', that way Samba does the adding and
you're guaranteed that it will know the machine account credentials.

> I noticed that when I start the Samba daemons (without first doing a
> "net join") and then try to map a drive that it automatically finds
> info on some of our domains ("WINPROD" & "VTIDEV.CA") but not the one
> I'm interested in ("CORP").

It's possible that these names are obtainable by broadcasting, in the
same way that I believe workgroups are.

> And what can I do to make it discover the domain I'm interested in
> ("CORP") without having to do a "net join"?

It'd strongly recommend doing a 'net join', as the Samba configuration
will be metaphorically held together with sticky tape if you don't, and
I wouldn't be at all surprised if it failed at a later date for
seemingly no reason.

Cheers,
Adam.