I kind of want to document this because odds are I will do it again.
Active Directory is a domain server that is built into Windows Server 2000, 2003, and probably all future versions of windows server. Basically it’s user and policy management for rather large networks. It integrates “well” with exchange server (email) as well as a half dozen or so other Microsoft server products.
Well, for security reasons, when you connect up a computer to the domain, there is an exchange of “keys” as the “machine” joins the “domain”. These keys are more or less unique to the individual machine, such that, if someone trys to do something on the domain using another machines name, it’s not allowed.
Lately, I have been trying to get a Samba 3 file server working within our domain at MSA. So far, getting it to do what I want hasn’t happened. In the process of trying to make this happened, I found out something interesting.
See, when you join the domain, you first name the computer, and then use administrator credentials to get it joined. It turns out, that if you name a machine the same thing as your domain controller, and then join using administrator level creditials, very bad things happen… Especially if you only have 1 domain controller.
Quite a few weird things start happening. Logins stop workings. Shares stop working. Errors everwhere.
Turns out the fix it quite simple, once you find it. You simply have to re-add the original server to the domain. The steps can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260575
So, you may never work with an Active Directory server, but if you do, and you ever have a problem like this… give this a whirl. Now if only I could solve the original problem.