samba - Apr 2000 - Join NT domain w/o using Server Manager?

I've been through the Archives, read the FAQs and pertinent info in the docs
that came with the source I downloaded (3.16.2000) samba-latest.tar.gz, and
have been unable to find a solution to my problem.

I saw an article by Jeremy Allison stating "There are two methods of adding
an NT machine to a domain. You can add the machine using the NT
administrator tool called Server Manager for Domains, or you can add it at
install time. This requires that you enter the domain administrator password
on the client machine being added. The second method actually allows you to
use Microsoft encrypted RPCs (remote procedure calls) from the machine being
added to achieve the same effect as you would using Server Manager for
Domains. 

As Samba doesn't yet implement the encrypted MS-RPC calls needed to use this
second method I will not discuss it further here. As far as the effect on
the domain controller account database is concerned, both methods are
identical."

However, this article is a bit old, and I was wondering if it still the
case.  Could someone confirm that there is no way to join the domain w/o
using SM for domains; or (much preferred), does anyone know of a workaround?

Currently, we have an NT WINS server on site, where we have access to Server
Manager for domains.  Shortly (April 15th) we will be changing to a
corporate WINS server, and will no longer be able to utilize Server Manager
for Domains.  

Thanks very much,
Eric Milligan

[Eric Milligan]
  [quoting Jeremy A.]
> As Samba doesn't yet implement the encrypted MS-RPC calls needed to
> use this second method I will not discuss it further here. As far as
> the effect on the domain controller account database is concerned,
> both methods are identical."
> However, this article is a bit old, and I was wondering if it still the
> case.  Could someone confirm that there is no way to join the domain w/o
> using SM for domains; or (much preferred), does anyone know of a
workaround?
Samba 2.0.x, I believe this is still the case.  CVS branch "HEAD" (on
track to become 2.3.0), I'm not sure.  CVS branch "SAMBA_TNG", you
definitely can do this with `samedit' or `rpcclient'.
> Currently, we have an NT WINS server on site, where we have access to
> Server Manager for domains.  Shortly (April 15th) we will be changing
> to a corporate WINS server, and will no longer be able to utilize
> Server Manager for Domains.
Well, assuming you still have a password that gets you "Domain Admins"
status, be that DOMAIN\Administrator or whatever, you *could* just
compile rpcclient and samedit (I think they'd both work but I don't
remember which is currently recommended) from SAMBA_TNG and use those.
This amounts to running {Server|User} Manager for Domains on a remote
machine.

It may take considerable playing with to get it to work smoothly, but
the functionality is there.

Peter