UNIX/NT passwd sync: Confused

[Cemal AKYEL]

Hi everyone. I've got samba server running on Solaris 2.6 as PDC and
everything runs ok. NT 4.0 (sp3) client can join to the domain. The
password mode is "encryption allowed". Now, I've got ~2,500 users that i
need to define on the server. Username/password information of these
users are kept in a UNIX style passwd file. As i understand from the
documentation i need to mksmbpasswd.sh first to create the smbpasswd
file.But this file won't have any passwd information (32 X's rather). As
i understand either
 * i need to initiate these accounts one by one by the command smbpasswd
(so then the users will have different passwords than their originals)
OR
 * set encrypt passwords=no and update encrypted=yes AND make use of the
original passwords and as the users login to the domain smbpasswd file
will updated.

the point that i'm confused is if i follow the 2nd alternative will my
client pc's (NT 4.0 sp3) be accepted to the domain (as indicated in the
NTDOM faq encrypted passwds should be used for this purpose)? Is there
any program that *fully* (including the original passwords) converts
(translates) UNIX style passwd file into smbpasswd?

i'm sure this was asked before. sorry for the duplication. i'll
appreciate if someone could show me the way.

thanks.

--
Cemal AKYEL

mailto:akyel at man.metu.edu.tr
http://www.man.metu.edu.tr/~akyel
phone: +90 (312) 210-2004
fax: +90 (312) 210-1243