simulating a large Windows domain with Samba

[Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net>]

For a project at work, I need to simulate a large Windows domain (100's or 1000's of member computers).  Is there an easy way to do this with Samba, short of creating 100's or 1000's of real or virtual machines?  

The Domain controller will be an actual Windows machine, but for my test I need to have a very large number of computers added to that domain.  I was thinking perhaps a single Linux system running Samba could masquerade itself as multiple Windows machines, but I don't know if that's really possible.  

Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

-Rob