I am trying to set up a computer lab for a small and resource challenged school. Is there any linux distro that will join a clearos samba domain without a huge amount of hokey pokey? Windows xp/7/8/10 clients work fine with a registry patch but I am trying to avoid software monoculture.

I have tried the directions for joining Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora without success. I haven't tried Slackware yet, but I tend to prefer Slackware as server.

I am almost at the point of buying some w10p licenses.

Have you checked the Samba wiki: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Set..._Domain_Member

If I remember correctly, a Clearos domain is an NT4-style domain which relies on SMBv1, so I wouldn't even think about setting up a new one. Samba is working hard on removing SMBv1 and it is turned off by default. You also mentioned the possibility of purchasing w10p licenses, does this mean your clients are Windows 10 Home ? If so, I would give up now, that version cannot join any domain.

I personally would set up an AD DC on Debian and use that, but only if the clients can join a domain.

1. Rather than the generic instructions from Samba.org I have tried to follow the distro specific instructions.
2. The windows boxen I have are all pro and no domain problems after doing the registry patch on them.
3. I will have to check which style of DC the ClearOS 7.2 is emulating.

What it comes down to is time vs. money. If it takes two extra hours of monkeying with config files but I get a stable, functional and repeatable environment I will do that, but it seems that my efforts so far have gone down the time well.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

samba is not distro specific at all. You only need to check the version of windows and samba.

clearOS does not emulate DC, but samba does.

Latest Ubuntu has option to join a domain when setting up the first user account in the installer. But this is not a LTS release, so you will have to run the upgrade command on them in a few months.

Clearos is based on RHEL. You cannot provision a Samba AD DC on RHEL, you can only create an NT4-style domain and these depend on SMBv1. You can provision a Samba AD DC on Fedora, but it uses MIT and so is experimental (and has been so for a number of years). If you want a Samba AD domain (and you do, believe me, forget PDC's), I suggest you use Debian for your DC's.

As for joining a Domain with the latest Ubuntu, this relies on sssd and realmd (neither of which are produced by Samba), I couldn't make it work with a Samba AD DC.