6.6 Common Errors

In the process of adding/deleting/re-adding Domain Member machine accounts, there are many traps for the unwary player and many " little " things that can go wrong. It is particularly interesting how often subscribers on the Samba mailing list have concluded after repeated failed attempts to add a machine account that it is necessary to " re-install " MS Windows on the machine. In truth, it is seldom necessary to reinstall because of this type of problem. The real solution is often quite simple and with an understanding of how MS Windows networking functions, it is easy to overcome .

6.6.1 Cannot Add Machine Back to Domain

" A Windows workstation was re-installed. The original domain machine account was deleted and added immediately. The workstation will not join the domain if I use the same machine name . Attempts to add the machine fail with a message that the machine already exists on the network ” I know it does not. Why is this failing? "

The original name is still in the NetBIOS name cache and must expire after machine account deletion before adding that same name as a Domain Member again. The best advice is to delete the old account and then add the machine with a new name.

6.6.2 Adding Machine to Domain Fails

" Adding a Windows 200x or XP Professional machine to the Samba PDC Domain fails with a message that, 'The machine could not be added at this time, there is a network problem. Please try again later.' Why? "

You should check that there is an add machine script in your smb.conf file. If there is not, please add one that is appropriate for your OS platform. If a script has been defined, you will need to debug its operation. Increase the log level in the smb.conf file to level 10, then try to rejoin the domain. Check the logs to see which operation is failing.

Possible causes include:

• The script does not actually exist, or could not be located in the path specified.

  Corrective action: Fix it. Make sure when run manually that the script will add both the UNIX system account and the Samba SAM account.

• The machine could not be added to the UNIX system accounts file /etc/passwd .

  Corrective action: Check that the machine name is a legal UNIX system account name. If the UNIX utility useradd is called, then make sure that the machine name you are trying to add can be added using this tool. Useradd on some systems will not allow any upper case characters nor will it allow spaces in the name.

The add machine script does not create the machine account in the Samba backend database, it is there only to create a UNIX system account to which the Samba backend database account can be mapped.

6.6.3 I Can't Join a Windows 2003 PDC

Windows 2003 requires SMB signing. Client side SMB signing has been implemented in Samba-3.0. Set client use spnego = yes when communicating with a Windows 2003 server.