I've been trying to move a samba PDC (Samba 3.02 on SUSE Linux 10) to a new machine. Since this is a small network (less than 15 workstations and a comparable number of users) I'm using the tdbsam backend, and therefore can't (I believe) set up a self-replicating BDC. So the purpose of this effort is to develop a backup plan that I know will work when the server goes down and I can't immediately figure out what the problem is. I'd like to have on hand a backup of the files necessary to set up a new server on a different machine to get back in business. As far as I can tell, this should work by setting up a seperate linux machine with the samba server installed & running, configuring the network connection using the same hostname, and then importing a certain set of files from the original server. The files I've copied over are: /etc/passwd /etc/group /etc/shadow /etc/security/fileshare.conf all of /etc/samba/* all of /var/lib/samba/* including subdirectories /profiles, / netlogon, /drivers, and /printers. In order to keep the same permissions and ownership info, I've transferred these files using tar -cpf ... I'm close to having this work just right, but not close enough. When I switch a client from the original server to the backup server, and try to log on, I get an error telling me either that my account has expired, or that my account expires today and I must change my password. Using pdbedit -Lv on the new server I find that the Password must change date is 1969. But using pdbedit to change the date to some time in the future doesn't fix the problem. If I remove and replace the account using smbpasswd -x and then -a, I can then log on without the error. But it's cumbersome and time-consuming to manually remove and replace all of the accounts, and more importantly, it's not answering the question of what's causing the problem. I assume there are more files that need to be brought over, but I don't know what they are. Thanks for any assistance. Here's the smb.conf: # smb.conf is the main Samba configuration file. You find a full commented # version at /usr/share/doc/packages/samba/examples/smb.conf.SUSE if the # samba-doc package is installed. # Date: 2005-09-13 [global] add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -c Machine -d /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %m$ admin users = @root browseable = no domain logons = yes domain master = yes encrypt passwords = yes guest ok = no local master = yes logon drive = c: logon path = \\%L\Profiles\%U logon script = localnet.cmd netbios name = ELMO nt acl support = yes os level = 65 passdb backend = tdbsam passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u passwd chat = *new*password* %n\n *new*password* %n\n *changed* security = user server string = Samba %v on (%L) smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd unix password sync = yes username map = /etc/samba/smbusers wins support = yes workgroup = BDCO [homes] comment = Home Directories valid users = %S browseable = no read only = No inherit acls = Yes [netlogon] path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon write list = @root [profiles] path = /var/lib/samba/profiles read only = no create mask = 0777 directory mask = 0777