[Samba] Moving PDC

[Donny Brooks]

Hi all,

      We currently have a Fedora 11 machine (about to be upgraded to 
Fedora 15 though) running Samba 3.4.7 as our PDC and multiple BDC "home 
servers" running various versions of samba and OS. What I am needing is 
a fail proof way to migrate the PDC function off the current machine and 
onto another new fresh install. Currently our PDC is also the home 
server for one of our groups of employees. I want to migrate this off 
onto a separate BDC if possible leaving the PDC functions to be the only 
thing that machine does. The last time I attempted this it did not work 
correctly but that is only because I thought I could simply copy the 
config file over and start up samba. That was incorrect.

What I need is a "fool proof" way to just make it work with minimal 
downtime for any of our users. We use OpenLDAP for domain authentication 
if that makes any difference. Before I have read that you demote and 
promote certain DC's to whatever function but not sure if that is the 
best way to do this. We have approximately 9 BDC "home servers" that are 
a mix of on our campus and some remote (all on our network though). I 
need the best way to not disrupt any of them if possible.

Thanks in advance.