[K12OSN] Old K12, with samba issues, I think

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 00:36, musicman wrote:

> Apart from being utilised as a thin client manager, the K12 box also
> acts as one of our redundant backups, using rsync.
> 
> When I first arrived, I noticed that it had been "running" every nite,
> as planned (scheduled batch scripts on the win2K server, using
> cygwin), but the disk was full, so it was not copying anything.

You might want to add the --delete option so it will always remove files
that were deleted on the source.  Or set up backuppc which will compress
files and let you keep a specified number of days on line.  You'll get
about 5x the amount of stuff in the same space.

> I deleted a bunch of files, and tried to start it up again, and found
> that about 15 minutes after the rsync had started (midnight), the
> win2K server had lost connection to the Domain.
> 
> It could still surf the web, so it hadn't lost all connectivity, but
> the rest of the network could not see it, and it could not see them. A
> simple restart was all that was required to solve the networking
> problem, though the backup hadn't completed, not even close.
> 
> The only thing I ever found in the win2K logs was that a browser
> election had happen around the same time.
> 
> Paul Nelson said it was definitely a samba issue, and not a browser
> election issue.

A PDC really, really wants to be the master browser, especially if
everything isn't set up to use it as a WINS server.  In
/etc/samba/smb.conf, set 'local master = no' and 'domain master = no'.

If you can put all your machine names in a local DNS server (even an
unregistered domain name will work locally) you can avoid most of the
problems of broadcast-based naming - at least for win2k and up. 


> I work in a production environment (well, a struggling NGO) that needs
> the K12 server up at all times, and there is no documentation about
> what has been changed in the system from the previous contractor.
> Hence my desire to upgrade to 4.2.0 is minimal since it does what we
> want and we rarely use the linux capabilities it provides (ie, I don't
> need the latest KDE/Gnome packages, I just need the rysnc to work)

If you get too far behind you will have trouble keeping the system
updated with security and critical bug fixes. If you aren't going to
upgrade you should at least set up apt/yum to use the appropriate
repository at http://fedoralegacy.org/ and pick up the available
updates.   Long-term, try to get replacement/backup hardware for your
server so you can install and test the new system with no risk to the
old one. Then even after you cut over you can still go back to the old
one to see how something worked if you missed anything.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com