[Samba] Samba 4 as NT4-style PDC on Ubuntu Trusty 14.04

[Michael Lueck]

Greetings Klaus,

Klaus Hartnegg wrote:
> I am also using Samba 4.1.6 of Ubuntu 14.04 as NT4-style domain controller. Works great!


Excellent feedback!

Our current servers run Samba as comes with Ubuntu 12.04. I am contemplating another LTS upgrade. Originally these servers started out on Ubuntu 9.04/9.10 --> 10.04 --> 12.04. 14.04 seems a solid OS 
thus far. I have done the LTS upgrade on my Xubuntu workstations the first weekend it was officially out.

Klaus Hartnegg wrote:
> As far as I remember I had to edit smb.conf to contain "server role = classic primary domain controller", and add "acl allow execute always = true"


Thank you for those tips.

Klaus Hartnegg wrote:
> Hint: If you have xattr support in the Linux filesystem, it is very advisable to not do chown or setfacl in Linux, but instead set the permissions in Windows (scriptable with icacls). This is much
> more flexible.


Yes, I have seen a bit of trouble in this area using chmod / chown upon Samba shares. In our configuration, somewhere I recall burying some settings to do with permissions. And for Linux client 
machines, I have a complicated set of args being passed to mount the Samba shares to such machines.

I have routinely needed to SSH directly to the server in order to perform some operations involving permissions (not even POSTFIX ACL related). Seems these are the global section entries I was recalling:

# New things global to all shares for ACL support...
    map hidden = no
    map system = no
    map archive = no
    store dos attributes = yes

# Added as a test to get correct perms on the Samba server
    unix extensions = no


Samba is still handy in spite of the technical road blocks as both Linux and Windows clients may connect to the server without additional client software being needed. Yes of course NFS comes with 
Linux, but to attach across NFS from Windows would mean installing additional software.

Anyway, my Samba smb.conf file standard configuration I developed while testing the early releases of Samba 3.0.x on Debian Sarge. I started with a very minimal smb.conf file, and then added 
line-by-line as requirements and capabilities expanded.I presented Samba and a stripped down version of the configuration I arrived at several times. Here is the last time I presented it:

"'Samba 3 PDC for Windows Clients and Samba 3 Book Review' Presentation from 2007"
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/Samba_3_PDC_for_Windows_Clients_and_Samba_3_Book_Review-Presentation_from_2007

Hopefully Point-n-Print is improved with the Samba which comes with Ubuntu 14.04. The version that came with... maybe it was 10.04... killed such capabilities, so I reverted back to manually deploying 
print drivers and printing directly to CUPS across IPP.

I am thankful,

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/