[Samba] Migration strategy

[Rowland Penny]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:24:36 +0100
Anders Östling via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> HI Rowland
> 
> I would love to keep the domain and just replace the DC's. But, as I
> have asked before, adding a Samba DC to the current Windows (2019)
> domain does not work for me since there are schema upgrades required,
> and I cant upgrade the schema since the Samba has not joined the
> domain yet. I think I referred to a chicken and egg dilemma a week
> ago. Can you comment on that; how I add a fresh Samba ad-dc
> installation to a domain that requires schema/function level 2016?
> 

When you first join a DC, it doesn't have a schema, so there is nothing
to upgrade, the schema is replicated in from the other DC in the join.

As Samba now has the code to work with 2019, a join with the latest
Samba may work.
Have you tried cloning the DC with the FSMO roles, sandboxing it and
attempting a join ?
If it works, it will be a lot less work ;-)

Rowland