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# Installing and configuring a secondary Samba-AD on Debian

Note

In this documentation, it is assumed:

- That the main domain controller is called srvads1.

- That the secondary domain controller is called srvads2.

- That the domain is called mydomain.lan.

- That the domain you would join is available (ping mydomain.lan / srvadsx.mydomain.lan should be ok). Please configure your /etc/resolv.conf before continue.

In the instructions below, you will replace mydomain.lan with your own domain name and srvads1 and srvads2 with the machine names of your choice.

## Preparing the Virtual machine

- On a 64-bit Debian, prepare the network configuration of the machine following the same documentation as for a new domain controller.

- For the file `/etc/hosts`, modify it so that it contains the DNS resolution of the machine’s FQDN on its IP (i.e. not the localohst 127.0.0.1 line), specifying the long name then the short name:

    127.0.0.1      localhost
    192.168.1.12   srvads2.mydomain.lan srvads2

### Retrieving the necessary packages

Tranquil IT’s DEBs are currently validated for Debian 12 & 13.

The packages of the latest version validated by the engineering team at Tranquil IT can be downloaded from the url samba-4.24.

When it will be necessary to migrate to the next version of Samba, you’ll just have to update the repository url like for example redhat-samba-4.25 .

For more comfort, you can define an apt repository and add our GPG public key:

    wget -qO- https://samba.tranquil.it/tissamba-pubkey.gpg | tee /usr/share/keyrings/tissamba.gpg > /dev/null
    sha256sum /usr/share/keyrings/tissamba.gpg
      95ab9a408a3e94564f5a9bfb6e82c9dc371f32e92004ee98acbf64b431c93e81  /usr/share/keyrings/tissamba.gpg
    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tissamba.gpg] https://samba.tranquil.it/debian/samba-4.24/ $(lsb_release -c -s) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tissamba.list

Warning

For Samba versions earlier than 4.22.7 please use this gpg key

    wget -qO- https://samba.tranquil.it/tissamba-pubkey-2017.gpg | tee /usr/share/keyrings/tissamba.gpg > /dev/null

### Installing the packages

    export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
    apt-get update
    apt-get install samba samba-ad-dc winbind libnss-winbind krb5-user smbclient ldb-tools python3-cryptography
    unset DEBIAN_FRONTEND

### Configuring Kerberos

- Open `/etc/krb5.conf`, remove its contents and add:

      [libdefaults]
        default_realm = MYDOMAIN.LAN
        dns_lookup_kdc = false
        dns_lookup_realm=false
      [realms]
        MYDOMAIN.LAN = {
        kdc = 127.0.0.1
        kdc = 192.168.1.12
        }

  Attention

  It is necessary to respect the CAPITAL LETTERS and replace the 2 IPs by:

  - The IP of your srvrodc first, we can use localhost 127.0.0.1.

  - The IP of srvads as the second IP (ex 192.168.1.12).

- Reboot the host:

      reboot

- After rebooting, ensure that kerberos is properly configured and that you get a TGT:

  Attention

  The default administrator is administrator in English (type the account password administrator, if it doesn’t return anything or you get a message about the password expiration, it’s ok).

      kinit administrator
      klist

## Configuring Samba as a Secondary Domain Controller

- Remove the configuration file `/etc/samba/smb.conf` which was automatically generated during package installation:

      rm -f /etc/samba/smb.conf

- Join the Domain Controller as a member of the domain. Replace the values mydomain.lan, MYDOMAIN.LAN and MYDOMAIN with the values of your domain:

      samba-tool domain join mydomain.lan DC -U administrator --realm=MYDOMAIN.LAN -W MYDOMAIN

- Modify the DNS to point to itself in `/etc/resolv.conf`:

      nameserver 127.0.0.1

- In `/etc/samba/smb.conf`, add the DNS forwarder:

      [global]
         ...
         dns forwarder = 8.8.8.8
         ...

- Activate the automatic start of the AD service:

      systemctl disable winbind nmbd smbd
      systemctl mask winbind nmbd smbd
      systemctl unmask samba-ad-dc
      systemctl enable samba-ad-dc

- Point your Kerberos to the correct configuration file:

  Hint

  By default Samba-AD provisioning creates an example file `krb5.conf` in the directory `/var/lib/samba/private`.

  This file is used by default by some Samba calls.

  It is best to replace it with a symbolic link to `/etc/kbr5.conf` to avoid some side effects.

      rm /var/lib/samba/private/krb5.conf
      ln -s /etc/krb5.conf /var/lib/samba/private/krb5.conf

- Restart Samba:

      pkill -9 smbd
      pkill -9 nmbd
      pkill -9 winbindd
      systemctl restart samba-ad-dc

- Check that the DNS entries have been created:

      samba_dnsupdate --verbose --use-samba-tool

## Configuring SYSVOL

- Graphically, you can retrieve the content of `\srvads\sysvol` from srvads1 and copy it to srvads2 from a Windows workstation as Domain Administrator. Or with command lines, on srvads2, run:

      rsync -aP root@srvads1:/var/lib/samba/sysvol/ /var/lib/samba/sysvol/

- Then reset the ACL on SYSVOL, and check the ACLs (it should return nothing if OK):

      samba-tool ntacl sysvolreset
      samba-tool ntacl sysvolcheck

Hint

While waiting for the development of a DFS-R officially supported by Samba-team, Tranquil IT proposes the tis-sysvolsync tool to synchronize SYSVOL shares between Samba domain controllers.

## Validating the new installation

- Check the status of the replications with samba-tool drs showrepl --summary. The replicas may take a few minutes to set up.

  Once the replicas are correct (5 Inbound replications and 5 Outbound replications), you can proceed to the following checks.

- Test the DNS connection from the DNS Active Directory console.

- Test the connection with the Users and Computers Active Directory console.

## Configuring signed NTP

- Configure the NTP by following the NTP service configuration documentation with Samba.

## Configuring DNS hybrid

Before going into production, the internal Samba DNS must be replaced by the DNS hybrid. To do this, follow the documentation to integrate Samba with Bind9 on Debian.

Great, if you have made it this far, then everything went well and you have a new operational secondary domain controller.