Windows 2008 R2 will not join "ZENTYAL-DOMAIN"

[fausto.teixeira@…]

Running "dcpromo" at a Windows 2008 R2 or attempting to simply join a Windows 2008 R2 to a Zentyal samba4 domain as a standalone server will always fail, even though Windows XP Pro machines do join without difficulty. Further tests showed that after changing 'File Sharing' -> 'General settings' -> 'NETBIOS domain name:' from "ZENTYAL-DOMAIN" to the leftmost domain name of the FQDN, the join will succeed. For example, where the FQDN is "engineering.example.com", a 'NETBIOS domain name:' of "engineering" will allow dcpromo to complete and/or the domain join to occur. CAVEAT: Zentyal Community Edition Beta, core version 2.3.21 DOES NOT PERMIT any changes to the string "ZENTYAL-DOMAIN", informing the domain name must be 15 characters or less, regardless of the new string length. I hacked around this problem with an axe, commenting out (disabling) two calls to Sub CheckWinName? within /usr/share/perl5/EBox/Samba/Model/GeneralSettings.pm.

[jacalvo@…]

This should be fixed in Zentyal 3.0 RC2, please reopen if you still can reproduce it. Thanks!

[fausto.teixeira@…]

scabrero@...,

Yes, the 'NetBIOS domain name' now defaults to the leftmost domain name of the FQDN and that certainly did fix that part of the problem. However, the bug that causes the message "Domain name is limited to a maximum of 15 characters" still occurs in zentyal-3.0-rc2, in /usr/share/Perl5/EBox/Samba/Model/GeneralSettings.pm. The reason this message appears irrespective of any changes to the length of the 'NetBIOS domain name' string, for example changing it from "engineering" to "engineering2" or to "eng", IS BECAUSE there is an aparently erroneous call to _checkWinName() from within sub _checkDomainName() which is processing the much longer $realm string and not a NetBIOS name. So, REMOVING THE LINE "$self->_checkWinName($domain, ('Domain name'));" from sub _checkDomainName() will fix the mentioned error message. Furthermore, another call to _checkWinName() is made from within sub _checkNetbiosName(). However, a few lines above, also within sub _checkDomainName(), a check is already done against MAXNETBIOSLENGTH which thows exception 'NetBIOS name is too long'. Consequently, the second call to _checkWinName() WILL NEVER BE EXECUTED. Unless there is good reason to leave as a separate sub _checkWinName(), A POSSIBLE SOLUTION WOULD BE TO REMOVE ALL references to _checkWinName() from the script AND SIMPLY CHANGE FROM 'NetBIOS name is too long' TO 'NetBIOS names must not exceed 15 characters.' the message associated with the remaining check done against MAXNETBIOSLENGTH within sub _checkNetbiosName. PLEASE NOTE: I HAVE NOT VERIFIED that the above-proposed solution also suits 'Server Role' = 'Additional Domain Controller' because I haven´t yet been able to configure Zentyal as an Additional Domain Controller.

[scabrero@…]

Hi Fausto,

the field validation is finally fixed in zentyal-samba version 2.3.15 that we will release as soon as possible. If you still have problems do not hesitate to reopen the ticket.

Thanks for your contribution.