Section 9.1. Introduction

9.1. Introduction

Network administrators who want to migrate off a Windows NT4 environment know one thing with certainty. They feel that NT4 has been abandoned, and they want to update. The desire to get off NT4 and to not adopt Windows 200x and Active Directory is driven by a mixture of concerns over complexity, cost, fear of failure, and much more.

The migration from NT4 to Samba-3 can involve a number of factors, including migration of data to another server, migration of network environment controls such as group policies, and migration of the users, groups, and machine accounts.

It should be pointed out now that it is possible to migrate some systems from a Windows NT4 domain environment to a Samba-3 domain environment. This is certainly not possible in every case. It is possible to just migrate the domain accounts to Samba-3 and then to switch machines, but as a hands-off transition, this is more the exception than the rule. Most systems require some tweaking after migration before an environment that is acceptable for immediate use is obtained.

9.1.1. Assignment Tasks

You are about to migrate an MS Windows NT4 domain accounts database to a Samba-3 server. The Samba-3 server is using a passdb backend based on LDAP. The ldapsam is ideal because an LDAP backend can be distributed for use with BDCs generally essential for larger networks.

Your objective is to document the process of migrating user and group accounts from several NT4 domains into a single Samba-3 LDAP backend database.