How to configure Samba 3 as Primary Domain Controller

If you are working in a corporate sector then you must have noticed that most of the IT companies are using Active Directory on Windows Server for centralized authentication of all the employees or users but now Linux has introduced Samba3 which can be used to provide the same functionality and features without paying anything from your pocket.

But Samba3 lacks some of the features of Active Directory so recently Samba4 has been launched by Samba which can used to configure Active directory Domain controller on the Linux machine and can be controlled using client software on any of the windows machine consisting of all the features of Active Directory. I won't be able to explain the feature of all the command for that you can take help of "GOOGLE" but I will try my level best from my side to explain all the required commands.

You can just follow the steps which I am going to post here and if you face any problem regarding the same kindly revert back with your error.

NOTE: Kindly take a backup copy of all the original configuration files you are going to use in this tutorial.

# rpm -qa | grep samba
samba-3.5.10-116.el6_2.i686
samba-common-3.5.10-116.el6_2.i686
samba-winbind-clients-3.5.10-116.el6_2.i686
samba-client-3.5.10-116.el6_2.i686

# yum -y install samba

# vi /etc/samba/smb.conf
[Global]
workgroup = EXAMPLE
#corresponds to domain name
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
domain master = yes
domain logons = yes
security = user
passdb backend = tdbsam
logon path = \%LProfiles%U
logon script = logon.bat
add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -d /dev/null -g 200 -s /sbin/nologin -M %u
[homes]
browseable = yes
writable = yes
[netlogon]
path = /home/netlogon
writable = no
browseable = no
[Profiles]
path = /home/profiles
createmask = 0755
directory mask = 0755
writable = yes

The line domain master = yes causes Samba to be the domain master browser, which handles browsing services for the domain across multiple subnets if necessary. Although it looks very similar, local master = yes does not cause Samba to be the master browser on the subnet, but merely tells it to participate in browser elections and allow itself to win. The next two lines ensure that Samba wins the elections.Setting the preferred master parameter makes Samba force an election when it starts up.

The line, domain logons = yes, is what tells Samba we want this server to handle domain logons.

Defining a logon path is necessary for supporting roaming profiles. The UNC \%Lprofiles%u refers to a share held on the samba server where the profiles are kept. The variables %L and %u are replaced by samba with the name of the server and the username of the logged on user respectively.
The logon script = logon.bat line specifies the name of an MS-DOS batch file that will be executed when the client logs on to the domain. The path specified here is relative to the [netlogon] share that is defined later in the smb.conf file.
For further knowledge on the above used syntax in the smb.conf file kindly refer to this website

Now we need to create the shares with proper permissions which we have mentioned in the smb.conf file

# mkdir -m 1777 /home/profiles
# mkdir -m 1777 /home/netlogon
# groupadd -g 200 machine

Since we have used a "add machine script" in our conf file as you can see above, we don't need to create any user for the machine of the client as it will automatically create one evrytime we login to domain connected client machine. But if you don't use that script then you can do the same manually

(optional)

# useradd -d /dev/null -s /sbin/nologin -g 200 machine1$

# smbpasswd -m -a machine1$

# useradd user1
# useradd user2
# smbpasswd -a root
# smbpasswd -a user1
# smbpasswd -a user2
# service smb restart
# service nmb restart 

Check your firewall settings as in my case I have disabled my firewall and selinux.

Client side configuration:

Open your windows XP machine and make sure the machine is in network with the server. Login to the computer as Administrator or another user in the Administrators group. Right click on the "My Computer" icon and click on prperties then go to "Computer Name" tab and click on "change".