[Samba] Migration From 3.0.22 to 3.0.28a on New Hardware

[Nick Webb]

Hey All,

I'm pretty new to complex Samba setups, but have used the more basic 
distro settings a lot over the past few years; many thanks for all the 
solid code.

Anyway, where I work I'm faced with moving a samba PDC from one server 
to another.  The backend password database is in LDAP, so I think that 
makes it easier?  The current server is aging (4-5 years old) and is low 
on disk space, necessitating the move.  However, the old server is still 
used for email and telephony, so it needs to stay on the network with 
the current name (say server1.mycompany.net).  I plan on turning Samba 
off on this server after the migration is complete.

We've got about 25 Windows XP Pro desktops on the domain and obviously I 
don't want to change anything on them.  The users are accessing shares 
on this server with \\server1\sharename and many have different shares 
mapped in their profiles.

So I'm trying to figure out what the easiest way of getting things onto 
the never server are without disrupting users?  My first thought is 
that, while confusing, it should be possible to just move everything 
over to the new server and call it server1 (via NetBIOS/WINS) even 
though it's DNS name is server2.mycompany.net?  That way all the users' 
mapped drives work as they should (as the name is the same), but I hear 
this can cause some name resolution issues?

I suppose the other approach is to call the new samba server something 
different (but of course the same domain name).  Maybe even give it the 
NetBIOS name of FileShare or something else service based so if it ever 
has to move again the naming convention makes sense.  If I went this 
route I'd have to change all the users' mapped drives, and hopefully 
there's a way to do this on the server side?  Will the desktops 
successfully login to the samba server if it's renamed?

Yet another thought is adding the new server as a BDC, moving the share 
data over to it, and either promoting the BDC to a PDC or just let them 
both run with the PDC serving logins but no real data.  Then if the PDC 
dies, I'd presume there is a procedure to promote the BDC to a PDC?

Thanks for the help, I want to make sure I go down the right road on 
this architecturally before I start hacking.

Nick

PS:  I'm using Ubuntu if that helps (migrating from 6.06LTS server to 
8.04LTS).