Precreating a Filer Domain Account in Active Directory (Optional)

Terminology

In this section, the following definitions apply:

filer domain account is the Active Directory domain account created for the filer.
filer administrator account is the user account assigned to the filer (the "Windows 2000 Administrator Name" you enter during cifs setup).
filer container is the console tree object (such as an Organizational Unit) in Windows Active Directory for your filer domain account.

Reasons for precreating the filer domain account

When you use cifs setup to create the filer domain account, you must assign certain permissions (listed later in this section) on the filer container.

If you create the filer domain account before you run cifs setup

You do not need to assign the permission to Create Computer Objects.
You can assign permissions specifically on the filer domain account, instead of assigning them on the filer container.

If your security structure does not allow the permissions cifs setup requires when it creates the filer domain account, you can create the filer domain account before you run cifs setup.

How cifs setup creates the filer domain account

When you run cifs setup, it automatically creates a domain account for the filer and joins the filer to the domain you specify. Therefore, you must assign permission for the filer administrator account to Create Computer Objects within the filer container.

Required permissions

If your security structure does not allow you to assign computer object creation permission to the filer administrator account, an administrator who has these permissions can use Active Directory Administrative Tools to create the filer domain account manually, before cifs setup is run.

If you do not precreate the filer domain account, you must assign the following permissions to the filer container:

Change Password
Write Public Information
Create Computer Objects

If you do precreate the filer domain account, you must assign the following permissions to the filer container or to the filer domain account you create:

Change Password
Write Public Information

How to manually precreate and configure a filer domain account

To precreate and configure a domain account for the filer, perform the following steps.

Note
The following procedure describes Windows 2000 Server tasks. Details of this procedure may vary on other Windows server versions.

Step	Action
1	In the Active Directory Users and Computers View menu, ensure that the Advanced Features menu item is checked.
2	In the Active Directory tree, locate the OU for your filer, right-click, and choose New > Computer.
3	Enter the filer (domain account) name. Note the filer name to make sure you enter it precisely when you run `cifs setup` later.
4	Specify the name of the filer administrator account to be allowed to "add this computer to the domain."
5	Right-click on computer account you just created and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
6	Click the Security tab.
7	Select the user or group that will add the filer to the domain.
8	In the Permissions list, ensure that the following check boxes are enabled: "Change Password" and "Write Public Information".
9	Run `cifs setup`. At the prompt "Please enter the new hostname," enter the filer name you specified in Step 3.