Best way to transfer a Windows roaming profile on a Samba 4 PDC server

migrationroaming-profilesamba4windows 7

I am migrating a old Samba 3 Primary Domain Controller to a new Samba 4 server, creating a new domain and new users. My Windows 7 test client can correctly join the domain and new users can logon on it. So everything OK.

Now I have to migrate old users' roaming profiles from the old server to the new one, mapping the changes on usernames where it is necessary.

Basically I am following this procedure to migrate profiles:

  • make a copy of the [username].V2 profile from the old server to the new [username].V2 on the new server
  • change ACL on files and directories on the profile using setfacl
  • log the new user on the test client

What I get is that the new user can logon on the test client, and I see in the Samba logs that the client is copying the profile from \server\profiles[username].V2, but after few minutes it automatically log off and the client return to CTRL+ALT+CANC window.

I googled for this problem and I got many hints about a client being attacked by spywares, malwares and so on, but this is not my case as the test client is newly installed.

I cannot find any particular error into the Samba logs.

Other users where I created a new profile from scratch (so I did not migrate an old profile on) can logon correctly without any problem, so the problem should be in the way I migrated the Windows profile.

Do you have any idea? Thanks!

Best Answer

The NTUSER.DAT in your User's profile contains the SID for that user. If you need to migrate the profiles you'll need a special tool for that.

Maybe the Microsoft User State Migration Tool (USMT) vom AIK can do this.