samba

On a CIFS/SMB domain the WINS service is critical for proper function [some things use WINS, some things use DNS, it is terribly confusing, but it is what it is]. DNS is relatively easy to test and you will likely know right away if it isn't working. But before adding those new DCs to your dhcpd.conf file -

option netbios-name-servers 192.168.1.78, 192.168.1.79, 192.168.1.65;

... it would be nice to be equally confident WINS is operating as expected.

Samba's sambaNTPassword attribute, which mimics the corresponding NT / Active Directory attribute, has a value that must be a hex encoded MD4 hash of the user's password with a UTF-16 encoding. Fortunately generating such a string is a Python one-liner.

import hashlib

password = 'fred123'
nt_password = hashlib.new('md4', password.encode('utf-16le')).digest().encode('hex').upper()

Note that Samba wants all the alpha characters in the string as upper-case.The result will always be 32 characters long.

    # service named start
    Starting name server BIND checkproc: Can not stat /var/run/named/named.pid: Too many levels of symbolic links
    - Warning: /var/run/named/named.pid exists! start_daemon: Can not stat /var/run/named/named.pid: Too many levels of symbolic links                                                          done