[Samba] Samba support for ADM files

[Lukasz Zalewski]

Kevin Hall wrote:
> Hi
> 
> What I would like to do is have my custom adm files in a shared folder on my 
> samba server so that if I make a change, it updates the windows XP clients on 
> my network in a similar fashion to active directory on a windows server.
> 
> However, I cannot seem to find any support for this in samba in the 
> documentation I have read. Do I have to go to each machine and  use group 
> policy editor to load the adm file? Am I missing something or is this going 
> to be a feature of samba 4?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Kevin Hall

AFAIK samba 3 only supports system policies and only samba 4 will be 
able to use GPO like policies. Have a look at
http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Implementing_System_Policies_with_Samba
This should give you some basic insight on how it all works.
You can convert existing .adm templates, or write your own ones, to be 
used with system policies by removing appropriate #if version statements.
Note that system policies have several limitations, i.e. will only be 
synced upon domain logon - i.e. background refresh or boot-time refresh 
will not work, and they will lack some of the rich features of GPO. 
They also work on registry "tatooing principle" so reverting a policy is 
more tricky. We have been using system policies for some time and they 
work pretty well (if you acknowledge their limitations).
I have written a small tool that can be run as a startup script, or at 
any time, which will convert existing NTConfig.pol data into Local GPO 
information - this might save you the effort of manual adjusting Local 
GPO's on every machine. The utility supports machine policies and user 
policies however the group stuff is missing - we just didn't have a need 
for it

HTH

Luk