samba - Jul 2005 - Server migration and software upgrade Suse 7.3/Samba 3 to Suse 9.3/Samba 3

I currently have a Samba 2.2.7a Domain running on Suse 7.3 that needs
to be replaced. The machine that will take its place runs Samba 3 on
Suse 9.3. The only docs I've seen so far covering migration have been
from NT4 to Samba not Samba to Samba and the upgrade docs only cover
same machine upgrades. It is possible that all clients be disconnected
for this migration.

I was planning on copying the shared files, machine.sid, smb.passwd,
/etc/password, and smb.conf then matching the old IP address. I
thought the Samba HOWTO docs BDC approach for migrating from NT4 might
work but it seems to be missing something. The last thing i want to do
is have to build the PDC from scratch, touch each workstation to
connect it to the new domain as the applications (Creative Solutions
Accounting, UltraTax and ProSeries) are very touchy.

Any help in making this run smoothly is greatly appreciated.

On Tuesday 19 July 2005 04:56 pm, NovusOrdo wrote:
> I currently have a Samba 2.2.7a Domain running on Suse 7.3 that needs
> to be replaced. The machine that will take its place runs Samba 3 on
> Suse 9.3. The only docs I've seen so far covering migration have been
> from NT4 to Samba not Samba to Samba and the upgrade docs only cover
> same machine upgrades. It is possible that all clients be
> disconnected for this migration.
>
> I was planning on copying the shared files, machine.sid, smb.passwd,
> /etc/password, and smb.conf then matching the old IP address. I
> thought the Samba HOWTO docs BDC approach for migrating from NT4
> might work but it seems to be missing something. The last thing i
> want to do is have to build the PDC from scratch, touch each
> workstation to connect it to the new domain as the applications
> (Creative Solutions Accounting, UltraTax and ProSeries) are very
> touchy.
>
> Any help in making this run smoothly is greatly appreciated.
I just did a similar migration and felt very uneasy approaching it, as 
like you stated, that particular roadmap is missing.

I went from a SuSE 7.3/Samba 2.2.x to a Gentoo 2005.0/Samba 3.0.x. To 
help boost the effort the old server developed hardware problems and 
started to crash once a day, then twice a day; finally it now stays up 
about 2 minutes. Got the really needed stuff off just in time.

Here's how I see it:
Critical stuff: SID, secrets.tdb, smbpasswd.
Extremely important stuff: /etc/passwd.
Very important stuff: smb.conf
Important stuff: etc/shadow, /etc/group.

(my ratings reflect the ease in which one might successfully recreate 
the needed data in the mentioned files)

The IP address, the domainname, and the NetBIOS are, as far as I can 
tell, unimportant as long as you have the old SID and set the new SID 
with it (all three are different in my new box, yet everything works 
right; the domain hasn't changed and neither have the profiles).

Basically, copy the secrets.tdb and smbpasswd files to the right 
locations. Copy smb.conf and edit for correctness, making any changes 
(I changed the NetBIOS name to match the short hostname of the new 
server, which differs from the old server).

Set the SID using the old SID, update /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and for 
ease I included /etc/shadow as well, with the samba user/groups.

Also do the groupmap stuff.

Anything else needed to mimic the old box.

Since I have acl support on the file system on my new box, it's another 
step I'm dealing with.

I also "upgraded" to a tdbsam backend.

Chris