Hi, I'm working as a computer lab monitor in the chemistry department of my university. My employer recently asks me to set up a PDC on a Redhat 9.0 machine in the lab. I have Samba running with a modified smb.conf which I generalized from one of Samba PDC documentation.

All of the computers in the lab have static ip-address assigned by the university network domain (unm.edu). Their current DNS address is that of one of the computer on campus. The problem I'm having is that whenever I try to change any of the Win2000 clients to the domain "CHEMPHOENIX," Windows says that the input domain name is invalid. I know for certain that Samba is running without any problem, and I can ping skywalker.unm.edu but not skywalker.chemphoenix from the client machines.

My question is:
**Do I need to set up a DNS server on the machine running Samba PDC in order for the Win2000 clients to recognize the domain "CHEMPHOENIX?"

If the DNS wasn't the problem, can someone give me a pointer on what went wrong?

Here is the smb.conf:
[global]
; basic server settings
workgroup = CHEMPHOENIX
netbios name = skywalker
server string = Samba PDC running %v
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192

; PDC and master browser settings
os level = 64
preferred master = yes
local master = yes
domain master = yes

;security and logging settings
security = user
encrypt passwords = yes
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
log level = 2
max log size = 50
hosts allow = 127.0.0.1 129.24.0.0/255.255.248.0

; user profiles and home directory
logon home = \\%L\%U\
logon drive = H:
logon path = \\%L\profiles\%U
logon script = netlogon.bat

; creates machine/trust accounts as needed
add user script = /usr/sbin/useradd -d /dev/null -g machines -s /bin/false -M %u

; sync UNIX passwords
unix password sync = yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *New*UNIX*password* %n\n *Retype*new*UNIX*password* %n\n *Enter*new*UNIX*password* %n\n *Retype*new*UNIX*password* %n\n *passwd: *all*authentication*tokens*updated*successfully*

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writeable = yes

[profiles]
path = /home/samba/profiles
writeable = yes
browseable = no
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700

[netlogon]
comment = Network Logon Service
path = /home/netlogon
browseable = no