samba - Jun 2018 - future of non-AD samba?

Hi,

We plan to upgrade servers, and wonder which configuration is 
future-proof. Must we switch to AD, or will a new Standalone Server also 
continue to serve Windows 10 clients?

Several messages suggest that new Windows sometimes cannot access old Samba.

What exactly is the cause? Is it Standalone Server versus Domain, is it 
old-style PDC versus AD, or is it SMB protocol version 1 versus 2 or 3?

Btw. I'm currently running Samba 4 as PDC and Samba 3.6 as standalone 
server, both are accessed from Linux, Win7, and Win-1709 (upgraded from 
older versions). The only problem so far has been that new Ubuntu 
defaults to disabled SMB1.

thanks,
Klaus

On Wed, 6 Jun 2018 12:24:20 +0200
Klaus Hartnegg via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We plan to upgrade servers, and wonder which configuration is 
> future-proof. Must we switch to AD, or will a new Standalone Server
> also continue to serve Windows 10 clients?
> 
> Several messages suggest that new Windows sometimes cannot access old
> Samba.
> 
> What exactly is the cause? Is it Standalone Server versus Domain, is
> it old-style PDC versus AD, or is it SMB protocol version 1 versus 2
> or 3?
> 
> Btw. I'm currently running Samba 4 as PDC and Samba 3.6 as standalone 
> server, both are accessed from Linux, Win7, and Win-1709 (upgraded
> from older versions). The only problem so far has been that new
> Ubuntu defaults to disabled SMB1.
> 
> thanks,
> Klaus
> 
Hi Klaus. the problem really isn't a Samba one, it seems that Microsoft
is moving to stop connection to an NT4-style domains.

If you are running a Samba PDC (not to be confused with running a
Samba AD DC and calling it a PDC because it is the first DC), then I
would suggest you urgently investigate migrating to AD.

You should also really update the Samba 3.6 machine, 3.6 is EOL as far
as Samba is concerned.

I think that 'standalone' machines will continue, but you will have to
set them up to work with SMB2/3. However, they really do not make
sense in an AD domain, you will have to keep users (and their
passwords) and groups in sync between Samba on the standalone server
and AD, something you will not have to do, if you join the machine as a
Unix domain member.

Rowland

Am 06.06.2018 um 12:41 schrieb Rowland Penny via samba:
> I think that 'standalone' machines will continue
Thank you very much for clarification. This means that SMB1 and PDC are 
the problems, not lack of AD.

But if we later need to switch to AD, is there a method like 
classicupgrade to do it? Currently classicupgrade of a standalone server 
Samba 3 creates a standalone server Samba 4, not an AD-DC. It appears to 
be enough to add a few lines to the old smb.conf to make classicupgrade 
do it, but I'm not certain.

Klaus