Questions[samba4](server)

I've joined a FreeNAS 11.3 in an Active Directory and everything works as expected. But one feature that I'm really missing is some kind of override on mapped home directories for users.

By default the directories are with the following template expansion: template homedir = /home/%D/%U

I want to change it to something like: /mnt/pool0/home/%U

There's no way on the web interface to do this, and I don't know if changing it directly on /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf is a good idea.

What would be the recommended solution?

I've got a Samba 4 share on a CentOS 7.2 server in my LAN that I access from some Windows 10 clients.
The clients use the server IP to access the share and Samba is configured to be a stand-alone server, not a domain member one.

Everything works fine as expected when internet connection is up, but when there's no internet connection the clients need up to 20 minutes before displaying the login credentials window.

It doesn't seem to be a network related problem: the clients can reach the server, ping it as fast as usual, use other protocols such as HTTP or SSH and in general perform every other network activity over the LAN flawlessly.
Also, the fact that it works after a long waiting, suggests me there's some kind of timeout involved in the process.

If disconnect the WAN cable from my local router and try to access the Samba share from the client, it starts to wait for something (green loading progress on address bar slowly moves), but as soon as I plug in the WAN cable again, the client shows the login window.

The Samba logs (debug level 5) don't show anything abnormal, but there seem to be many connecting attempt which are indeed accepted by the server:

[2016/11/15 16:18:34.378116, 3] ../source3/lib/access.c:338(allow_access) Allowed connection from 192.168.100.5 (192.168.100.5) [2016/11/15 16:18:34.436829, 5] ../lib/dbwrap/dbwrap.c:178(dbwrap_check_lock_order) check lock order 2 for /var/lib/samba/serverid.tdb [2016/11/15 16:18:34.436924, 5] ../lib/dbwrap/dbwrap.c:146(dbwrap_lock_order_state_destructor) release lock order 2 for /var/lib/samba/serverid.tdb ... ... this is repeated an unbelievably lot of times ... ...

I'm incline to think it's a Windows 10 related problem more than a network/samba/server one.

I'm trying to set up a imaging environment. The idea is to use DISM to apply WIM images (Windows 10 Pro) over the network.

I am able to boot into Windows 10 PE. I have network connectivity via DHCP.

When I try to map the network share using net use i: \\server\share I get:

System error 58 has occurred. 
The specified server cannot perform the requested operation.

If I try to map it with net use i: \\server\share /user:user password where user is a system user, it works.

The share is is completely public. I am able to map the share with no credentials on 4 other Windows machines. (2x Win7, 2x Win8).

The server is Ubuntu 14.04 running Samba. 4.3.9-Ubuntu.

My /etc/samba/smb.conf looks like this:

[global]
    workgroup = WORKGROUP
    security = user
    server string = Imaging Server
    dns proxy = no
    follow symlinks = yes
    wide links = yes
    unix extensions = no
    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
    max log size = 1000
    guest account = nobody
    encrypt passwords = true
    map to guest = bad user

[share]
    comment = images
    path = /share
    browsable = yes
    guest only = yes
    read only = no
    writable = yes
    public = yes
    create mask = 0664
    directory mask = 0775

/share is owned by nobody:nogroup

Any ideas would be appreciated.

I've always understood that there are five FSMO roles, but sometimes I see something that says there are seven. How many are there, really?

I have an old Samba 3 + LDAP server installed that needs to be rebuilt. I'm weighting my options, and Windows Server seems too expensive at the moment, and Samba 4 appeared to be a nice option, coupled with the last Bind 9 that can dynamically add the computers to the DNS.

I have about 30 workstations, so I still consider it a small network.

My questions are:

1. Is Samba 4 stable enough for production? It seems as if the Samba team is too cautious on when to call their version final, or even beta, as compared with other open source projects.
2. What Linux distribution would you recommend to set it up? I usually use Ubuntu Server, but may use another one if installing / maintaining Samba 4 is better on that one.