[Samba] workgroup versus domain name

[Klaus Hartnegg]

Am 26.04.2018 um 19:39 schrieb Rowland Penny via samba:

> 'workgroup' is another way
> of saying 'netbios domain name', so 'workgroup\user' means exactly
> the same as 'domain\user'

According to "man smb.conf" workgroup is not the same as netbios name.

> When you provision a domain, it will set the netbios domain name to the
> left hand part of the dns domain/realm

But classicupgrade behaves differently:
It copies workgroup from smb.pdc.conf, and sets netbios name to the 
hostname ("dc1"). Neither of which is (in my case) part of the realm 
(ad.COMPANY.com). I end up with three different names for the same 
"thing": Users log on as WORKGROUP\user, shares have names 
\\HOSTNAME\share, and RSAT shows everything inside ad.COMPANY.com.

On a Windows server with DFS the domain can be used for everything: 
users are domain\user, shares are \\domain\share. Much simpler.

Coming from Windows I'm confused that a Samba AD-DC has both domain and 
workgroup. Windows Clients have either workgroup or domain. Windows DCs 
have only domain.

The reason for the difference between provision and classicupgrade might 
be in the examples on the wiki pages: the provisioning example contains 
the option --domain=ad, the classicupgrade example does not. This is 
probably useful when upgrading from a PDC, but it surprised me that 
workgroup can be totally different from realm.

What would happen if I specify --domain=ad in the classicupgrade? Would 
users and computers find that "renamed" server?

Klaus