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Ghost 7.5 to Ghost 8 upgrade problem

Problem: After upgrading to Ghost V8, joining the domain fails every time..

Local setup:
Ghost 8 on a 2.4GHz PC
Samba 2.28a on a Solaris/Intel server
CISCO based switched 100Mb network

We have been using Ghost 7 & 7.5 for about three years (with varying success), but have been learning all along to a stage where we have everything working well enough for our purposes.

Now enter Ghost 8.....

I quite accidentally, since the installer does not tell you that it will overwrite the existing install even if you specify a different installation directory, installed Ghost8 on our image server and everything looked well enough to proceed as per usual.

We had to image a set of machines with an image we had previously created for them, and after creating the machine accounts on the UNIX server, we imaged the PCs, only to find that none actually successfully joined the domain. Joining them by hand worked just fine, however.
The Ghost log for the task showed that the machine entries were created successfully with their new SIDs (and verifiably so in the Samba logs), but in POST Configuration entry it showed:

Failed to join domain CSSE: Logon Failure: unknown username or bad password

and sure enough, when looking through the Samba log, we find that the client is sending a completely different username when trying to join the domain than when creating the machine account on the server.
This strange account is called ghostjoindomainuser (or GhostJoinDomainUser in some places in the log file)

Sticking that expression into Google did not produce a single hit!

I rang Symantec (Oz) corporate support, but now was told a day later that Symantec have now tested Ghost with Samba and are not in a position to support it in this environment; very sad that! I will still have to ask Symantec if 'ghostjoindomainuser' is a Symantec invention or a backdoor provided by Microsoft to ease deployment !?!

In the meantime, we have to join EVERY PC to the domain by hand. VERY TIME CONSUMING!

I tried rolling the install back, but it turns out that the Ghost database file is now no longer compatible with Ghost 7.5. Enter big sigh here....

Hoping for some response, Thomas

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Answers (1)

Posted by: tigger_too 19 years ago
Yellow Belt
0
Hello to all that care:

we have now finally found a workaround which we would like to share with other Forum users that will help overcome the current shortcomings of the pairing of a Samba server and Ghost 8.

Afer long and fruitless searches we now use Microsoft's NETDOM.EXE as an extra command after cloning. Steps as follows:

* Clone your PCs as always, but only specify a Workgroup relationship, not a Domain!

* Download Active Directory Forest Recovery
(which contains NETDOM.EXE) from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3EDA5A79-C99B-4DF9-823C-933FEBA08CFE
and extract to file system near you

then

* Use Ghost to copy NETDOM.EXE onto all PCs you need to join to the domain (in our example C:\WinNT)

* Use Ghost to Execute Command in Target Operating System, using this syntax (where: "C:\WinNt\netdom.exe" goes into the command field, the rest all in one string into the Arguments field)(also: "ComputerName" is a Windows variable; type: 'set'on a command line to extract all current parameters from a running system)

"C:\WinNt\netdom.exe" join "ComputerName" /DOMAIN:YourDomainHere /UserD:YourGhostServiceAccountNameHere /PasswordD:YourGhostServiceAccountPasswordHere /Reboot

Please note that any spaces contained in domains, users or passwords will require you to enclose the string in double quotes ("blah blah")

Et Voila, cest-ca!

Thomas
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