[Samba] AD and SAMBA

[Biju_babu at cargill.com]

Hello all,

I am trying to understand how SAMBA finds nearest Domain Controller when
configured to use Active Directory for AuthN.

There are some great articles and wikis about how to configure SAMBA
against AD, but couldn't find much on what I was looking for.

For example
1. Does Samba have built in dc locator functionality like windows
clients ?
2. What is the default authN it uses, NTLM or Kerb ?
3. I understand from an article
(http://timstechnoblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Linux)  that Winbind
when configured to use * for domain controller will invoke Dc locator
mechanism, but couldn't completely understand the relation b/w Samba and
Winbind - is it SAMBA always uses winbind for AD communication and
authentication ? 

Root of all these questions are, SAMBA AD config I saw is configured to
use a single password server, which is a single point of failure. I am
trying to figure out how to avoid that.


Feel free to correct me if I asked stupid questions, my knowledge with
SAMBA and other components are very limited. Much appreciate your help.

Rgds 
Biju