Ns7 to replace Windows 2012r2 domain controller

I am interested in moving our small business network of 30-ish Windows 10 computers away from Windows server. I have a domain controller on Windows Server 2012r2 currently. I have other Linux servers on my network already and am not afraid of managing a ns7 as a virtual machine doing domain controller work. I am just not sure how to do the transition from a Windows domain controller to ns7 - switching the roles, etc.

  • First, can ns7 be the only domain controller?
  • Second, is there a documented way for ns7 to migrate the domain controller roles away from Windows Server 2012r2 so that I can turn off and stop using the Windows server?
  • Third, if that is all possible, can I then add a 2nd ns7 domain controller for redundancy?

Am I better off just manually removing all the Windows workstations from the current domain and then joining them to the new domain that has ns7 as domain controller?

Thanks.

3 Likes

Hello,

see

and
http://wiki.nethserver.org/doku.php?id=howto:add_ns7_samba_domain_controller_to_existing_active_directory

Yes

For now it’s possible to join the domain as member and NOT as DC.

Yes, I think so.

4 Likes
  1. Yes.
  2. Somewhat, It lacks some detail if you want to keep using enterprise practises and some things work differently.
  3. Google suggests it is possible, but given that AD is multi master, there should be no need?
4 Likes

You already got some important inputs from my foreposters- more details in the Poblems with moving, you probably could find in this theard: Moving from Zentyal 3.4 DC to NS7 DC (AD) at a medical institution
We moved from Linux to Linux, but the Steps and thinking could be quite similar.
Hope that helps.

Thanks everyone. I doubt I’ll move forward with this at this point. Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

I gave up too and installed samba on Ubuntu server. Wasn’t that tricky to set up either as there’s good documentation on the samba website. A shame really as I like nethserver, but in this regard it’s not quite there yet unfortunately.

Never give up using Nethserver :slight_smile:

I don’t see the difference in setting up samba4 between Ubuntu server and the NSDC container with freshest samba 4.6.5, while actual Ubuntu has just 4.5.8. Maybe it’s possible to use the smb.conf from Ubuntu directly in NSDC and “manually” join your Windows AD with “samba-tool”. Or you could join your Nethserver to your Ubuntu server, so you may use the Ubuntu server instead of the NSDC container.

This one? Joining a Samba DC to an Existing Active Directory - SambaWiki
I tried it on NSDC with Win2003: Add/Replace existing AD Domain Controller with ns7 - #21 by mrmarkuz
I personally think, what’s possible with Ubuntu has to be possible with Nethserver too.

Yeah, me too, but finally we should get it there and I think it’s possible!

2 Likes