UNOFFICIAL I am running several small networks with Samba 4 acting as AD/DC. I want to upgrade the OS and Samba on the older servers. But I understand that to upgrade the OS, I need to do a new install (at least to get from Centos 6 to 7). I don't have the luxury of new hardware, so creating a secondary DC and taking over from PDC is not an option. These are small networks so recreating the data should be relatively trivial. But I need the process to be transparent to the users and to Windows. My idea is to: Remove all PCs from domain Install the latest CentOS and Samba 4 (new hard drive) on the server using the same host name, ip and domain name as before. Recreate users. Rejoin all PCs to domain. Will windows recognise the recreated domain user accounts as being the same as the old accounts? Is this approach feasible? I would appreciate any hints.
Hi Russell, Using extra hardware definitely helps to do such upgrades transparent to the users: add an additional DC, transfer FSMO roles there, demote old DC on existing server, upgrade or reinstall existing server, add as DC, transfer FSMO roles, demote temporary DC. Even the smallest budget can afford a Raspberry Pi, which works very well to host Samba for a small network.It is not a luxury. In my case I have DCs running on Debian/Raspbian, it is very stable. You could try CentOS on RPi, but I don't know how well it works. I was only partially successful with Fedora on RPi, which is not very different from CentOS, but it might be related to my lack of experience with Fedora. regards, Norbert On 04.05.2018 04:47, Thamm, Russell via samba wrote:> UNOFFICIAL > I am running several small networks with Samba 4 acting as AD/DC. > > I want to upgrade the OS and Samba on the older servers. But I understand that to upgrade the OS, I need to do a new install (at least to get from Centos 6 to 7). I don't have the luxury of new hardware, so creating a secondary DC and taking over from PDC is not an option. > > These are small networks so recreating the data should be relatively trivial. But I need the process to be transparent to the users and to Windows. > > My idea is to: > > Remove all PCs from domain > Install the latest CentOS and Samba 4 (new hard drive) on the server using the same host name, ip and domain name as before. > Recreate users. > Rejoin all PCs to domain. > > Will windows recognise the recreated domain user accounts as being the same as the old accounts? > > Is this approach feasible? > > I would appreciate any hints. > > > > >
Hi Russel,> I am running several small networks with Samba 4 acting as AD/DC. > > I want to upgrade the OS and Samba on the older servers. But I understand that to upgrade the OS, I need to do a new install (at least to get from Centos 6 to 7). I don't have the luxury of new hardware, so creating a secondary DC and taking over from PDC is not an option. > > These are small networks so recreating the data should be relatively trivial. But I need the process to be transparent to the users and to Windows. > > My idea is to: > > Remove all PCs from domain > Install the latest CentOS and Samba 4 (new hard drive) on the server using the same host name, ip and domain name as before. > Recreate users. > Rejoin all PCs to domain. > > Will windows recognise the recreated domain user accounts as being the same as the old accounts? > > Is this approach feasible? > > I would appreciate any hints.like Nortbert was saying, you can have a small computer as you temporary server, or a even a virtual box VM on your computer. If this is not an option, you can keep a copy of /etc/samba/smb.conf file and /var/lib/samba/private directory and copy them over to your new installation. Samba will upgrade the database on first startup. Remember to make a dbcheck --cross-ncs after upgrade. Cheers, Denis> > > > >-- Denis Cardon Tranquil IT Systems Les Espaces Jules Verne, bâtiment A 12 avenue Jules Verne 44230 Saint Sébastien sur Loire tel : +33 (0) 2.40.97.57.55 http://www.tranquil.it Samba install wiki for Frenchies : https://dev.tranquil.it WAPT, software deployment made easy : https://wapt.fr