I did modify the line, and after that and some other modifications elsewhere i finally was able to "see" the server in the computers list in Win2k3 ( was not working before)..

your step 5 : when i do the simple getent passwd to see domain users and UIS's , i get a long delay of search and i get a result of only local users..

I saw some errors in the "message" file:

getent: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap:// 192.168.0.10: invalid credentials
getent: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap:// servername.domain.com/ : Invalid credentials
getent: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 4 seconds )
...and on and on....until i get this one
getent: nss_ldap: could not search LDAP server - server in unavailable

going deep to search for the bug.
cya in a week or two :lol: