[Samba] First use of cd ~user fails on systems using winbind

[Rowland Penny]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:34:46 -0400
Jason Keltz via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> I'm running the latest Samba 4.18 on our dc (Linux - Rocky 8.8), and
> the clients are running the latest 4.17 (Linux - Rocky 8.8) to be
> upgraded to 4.18 soon.
> 
> I've noticed an issue for awhile that is really quite strange and
> wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this.
> 
> Samba/Kerberos auth has been setup and working for quite a long time, 
> and I don't think the configuration of Samba really has anything to
> do with this issue, but just wondering if someone has seen this issue.
> 
> Once I login to my system as me (GNOME) and open a terminal, if I try
> to "cd ~jas" (my user ID) I get: "Unknown user: jas".
> 
> Any time after the first fail, I can "cd ~jas" and it works fine.
> 
> If open a new terminal, and run "whoami" right away, it says "jas",
> and then try "cd ~jas", again the first time it reports: Unknown
> user: jas, and the next cd ~jas works without error.
> 
> If I open a new terminal, and run "cd /cs/home/jas" which is what
> ~jas would be expanded to then it works, but again if I follow that
> with "cd ~jas" I get: Unknown user: jas the first time.  Do it again
> and it works.
> 
> If I open a terminal, and run "id", then I get back the proper id
> info exactly as I expect, but again, run "cd ~jas" and I get "User
> unknown: jas" the first time.
> 
> If I open a terminal, and run "echo ~jas" it returns the "Unknown
> user: jas", and if I echo ~jas again it works.
> 
> On the other hand, if I open a terminal and immediately run "echo ~" 
> then it returns "/cs/home/jas" and if I type "cd ~" it works, but if
> I type "cd ~jas" it again returns Unknown user: jas the first time.
> 
> In /etc/nsswitch.conf I do have (among other lines):
> 
> passwd:      files winbind systemd
> shadow:     files
> group:       files winbind systemd
> 
>   I even tried removing "files" from the passwd line, and got the
> same result.
> 
> Any thoughts?  I'm guessing potential OS bug? but surely I wouldn't
> be the first person to recognize it.
> 
> Jason.
> 
> 

I have seen something like this, but it was a number of years ago and
was caused by winbind not starting at boot, though I doubt this is your
problem.

It just so happens that I have Samba running on Rocky 8 in a VM,
problem is, everything works for myself.

Where did you get the Samba packages for a DC on Rocky from ?

Can you please post the smb.conf from the client, easiest is to post
the output of 'testparm -s'

Rowland