replacing an old server

[eremyja]

i think i posted this in the wrong place... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8343513

heres the down low:
have an old junky server acting as the pdc
wanting to put in a new pdc and want to know how to change it easily

[Vegan]

I recently did a forklift upgrade of my server, and I only changed the NIC to the assigned IP address and it was good to go. If you want to use a new disk, you will have to save all the config files you are using.

Saving /etc is not a bad idea.

[eremyja]

ok so would changing the ip and name to match the old one do the trick you think?

[spikyjt]

If its a samba pdc you might have a nightmare, because the new PDC will have a different domain SSID (even if you call it the same name, IP etc). I suggest you keep the current one running, setup the new one as a BDC and then remove the old one and promote the new one to PDC. That's all theory though, as I've never done that myself! Basically Windows networking is a barrell of crap and is a nightmare if you need to change anything. If you used LDAP auth however, it might be easier, as you could backup the LDAP DB and re-instate it on the new machine. Extensive reading of the Samba HowTos may be necessary! Good luck