See Figure 1.11 . However, the Samba team promises that support for the Windows NT domain controller protocol is forthcoming in Samba 2.1. The protocol that Windows domain controllers use to communicate with their clients and other domain controllers is proprietary and has not been released by Microsoft. This has forced the Samba development team to reverse-engineer the domain controller protocol to see which codes perform specific tasks. The domain controller is the nerve center of a Windows domain, much like an NIS server is the nerve center of the Unix network information service.
Domain controllers have a variety of responsibilities.
One responsibility that you need to be concerned with is authentication . Authentication is the process of granting or denying a user access to a shared resource on another network machine, typically through the use of a password. On a Windows domain, when a non-authenticated client requests access to a server's shares, the server will turn around and ask the domain controller whether that user is authenticated. If it is, the server will establish a session connection with the access rights it has for that service and user. If not, the connection is denied.