[Samba] NT4 SP3 PDC with MS Exchange 5.5 to Samba 3.x ldapbacked PDC and MS Exchange 5.5 still

[Chris Smith]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Derek Werthmuller
<dwerthmu at ctg.albany.edu> wrote:
> Looking to make some changes to an old but working LAN, that has about 10
> samba servers serving printers and network shares and a NT 4 PDC server with
> Exchange 5.5 on it.  The samba servers are members of the nt4 domain, XP
> systems are members of the nt 4 domain also.
>
> I'd like to be able to support windows 7 clients as domain members, right
> now the clients are all XP.
>
> Keeping the exchange is really a stop gap till we can move that function to
> the cloud.
>
> Have others done similar upgrades successfully?  Does this sound reasonable?

I have a client in a similar situation. NT4 PDC w/Exchange 5.5 and
Samba member servers. Main problem is that they're running an old
custom Outlook/Exchange workflow app which locks them in until it can
be replaced.

As you're aware newer then XP cannot join an NT4 domain but can join a
Samba domain - and they will eventually need some new desktops. So my
thoughts have been running along the lines of demoting the NT4 PDC and
having a Samba server take over those duties. Problem's are the NT4
PDC is not a supported task, and even if a registry hack can
accomplish it (according to an old post by Minasi it should) but the
effect on Exchange after this is apparently unknown. Also a test
attempt to vampire the PDC did not work due to capitalization problems
(if the vampire script did a lower case conversion this might have
been a big start).

All services except for PDC, WINS and Exchange have been moved from
the NT4 box. Outside email is handled by Google Apps. DNS, NTP, file
and print services, etc. all handled by Linux servers, firewall is
OpenBSD/PF. Also to protect from failure of the old hardware the PDC
has been virtrualized and running under VirtualBox where regular
snapshots can be taken.

The virtualization of the NT4 PDC also provides an opportunity to
experiment with copies/snapshots so I hope to tackle this a bit more
in depth when time permits. Of course any clues, hints, experience to
be shared in this area are very welcome. I will gladly provide
anything I find out that may be useful.

Chris