[Samba] Win2K3 DNS losing Samba DNS entries?

[Jason Haar]

Hi there

We are having a problem where the DNS "A" records of ADS member Samba 
servers are disappearing from DNS. It's not routine, but it is 
definitely real. What we normally do is assign static IPs, create DNS 
records manually and then install and configure the Samba server (mainly 
CentOS4 and CentOS5) and "net ads join" it to the domain. This is 
normally good for a week or so - but then suddenly the "A" record 
disappears from DNS!

If we manually add other Linux or non-Windows servers to the domain, and 
they don't run Samba - then this problem doesn't seem to occur - so it 
smells like some "Samba-to-AD" problem to me...

Does this ring any bells? Would recompiling Samba with 
"--with-dnsupdate" (which still seems to be disabled by default) enable 
Samba to *continually* ensure its "A" record is kept intact?  Weirdly 
enough, we find that if you go through this grief of disappearing "A" 
records for a week or so (and adding it back in), then suddenly it seems 
to all go right and the problem disappears for that particular server. 
But then the next one you install goes through the same problem.

Any ideas appreciated.

-- 
Cheers

Jason Haar
Information Security Manager, Trimble Navigation Ltd.
Phone: +64 3 9635 377 Fax: +64 3 9635 417
PGP Fingerprint: 7A2E 0407 C9A6 CAF6 2B9F 8422 C063 5EBB FE1D 66D1