samba - Oct 2024 - Problem with a domain controller that is located in a separate site

On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:37:15 -0400
James Atwell via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
 
> Do Samba logs show any errors with replication? 
Probably not, because in his initial post, he said replication was
working, but 'repsTo' wasn't populated.

Rowland

> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba <samba-bounces at lists.samba.org> On Behalf Of Rowland
> Penny via samba
> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2024 11:56 AM
> To: samba at lists.samba.org
> Cc: Rowland Penny <rpenny at samba.org>
> Subject: Re: [Samba] Problem with a domain controller that is located in a
> separate site
> 
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:37:15 -0400
> James Atwell via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> 
> > Do Samba logs show any errors with replication?
> 
> Probably not, because in his initial post, he said replication was
working, but
> 'repsTo' wasn't populated.
> 
> Rowland
> 
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Hi Rowland,

I seen that, but that appears to come from a screenshot using ADSI Edit when
I reviewed the thread. I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time. 

The attribute repsTo is optional but it most cases should exists once a
replication partner has been established and actual replication takes place.
Reviewing the thread, I show initially Adam didn't have NTDS auto generated
connections to his Samba and Microsoft servers. He lowered the replication
time in the site link to 15 minutes(I wouldn't leave at that value) which
triggered the KCC and successfully created the NTDS connections on both.
The establishment of NTDS connections don't automatically trigger the repsTo
field to be populated. The KCC determines how replication occurs, but it
doesn't necessarily mean that outbound replication is actively occurring.
Even though Adam said replication was working. 

It appears that the connection is primarily being used for inbound
replication or that the DC has not recently replicated changes to the
neighbor DC. I asked Adam to delete the NTDS connections and see if they get
reestablished on both DC's. If they do, I suggest next he add a user, dns
hostname, and computer on the Samba server and see if it gets replicated on
the Windows sever.  Having verbose logging on during this time would be
helpful. These changes should trigger the repsTo attribute to become
populated. 

I've seen in my own experience happen but only with a Samba environment.
When it did occur, I did the above except I used the samba-tool drs
replicate command to force the population of inbound and outbound neighbors.


-James