samba - Jan 2024 - recommendations for new AD with samba as backup DC

I'm about to deploy a new directory since I had only one Windows
Server 2019 DC and its storage died out (specifically, a block/page
where part of ntdis.dit happened to be stored because I was able to
rescue everything else. amazing)

Anyways, this time around I definitely need to have a backup DC. I
planned to have Windows be the primary DC and samba be the backup. I
wanted to know what precautions should I take,
- I saw that samba is still being prepared for functional level 2016
and schema 2019, is this still the case? should I instead provision
the domain as 2012R2 or 2008R2?
- should I instead have the samba one be the primary DC?

I never got GPOs working on a domain with just one samba DC as primary
even with a heimdal build (and the MIT one had weird issues when
authenticating on other machines for RDP) so I do need a windows
server DC and I'm guessing it has to be the primary DC.

I'd love to know before I spend time in vain setting up a new forest
based on bad decisions that I have to tear down and recreate after
finding out I made mistakes :')

Thanks in advance <3

Hi

you don't need a Windows-DC it's much better and easier if you set up 
both DCs with the same OS. 4.19 comes with FL 2016 (if you need it). The 
GPOs work absolutely the same as with a windows DC. You can use RSAT to 
do it.

Stefan

Am 19.01.24 um 22:07 schrieb Mikel P?rez via samba:
> I'm about to deploy a new directory since I had only one Windows
> Server 2019 DC and its storage died out (specifically, a block/page
> where part of ntdis.dit happened to be stored because I was able to
> rescue everything else. amazing)
> 
> Anyways, this time around I definitely need to have a backup DC. I
> planned to have Windows be the primary DC and samba be the backup. I
> wanted to know what precautions should I take,
> - I saw that samba is still being prepared for functional level 2016
> and schema 2019, is this still the case? should I instead provision
> the domain as 2012R2 or 2008R2?
> - should I instead have the samba one be the primary DC?
> 
> I never got GPOs working on a domain with just one samba DC as primary
> even with a heimdal build (and the MIT one had weird issues when
> authenticating on other machines for RDP) so I do need a windows
> server DC and I'm guessing it has to be the primary DC.
> 
> I'd love to know before I spend time in vain setting up a new forest
> based on bad decisions that I have to tear down and recreate after
> finding out I made mistakes :')
> 
> Thanks in advance <3
>