password API needed

[Gerald Carter]

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> 
> questions like: do you think it's a good or a bad idea to add more
> NT-SAM-like parameters to smb.conf, like "kickoff time" and "domain
> workstations", bearing in mind that these may have to go down to the
> granularity of a per-group or per-user basis?
> 
> jeremy's vote is no, my vote is "fuzzy-logic-yes".  jean-francoi's 
> vote is "if it's a configuration nightmare, absolutely not, and 
> creating hundreds of smb.conf.%U files is a definite nightmare".

Luke,

After pseudo following these discussions as of late, here's my two
cents...

smb.conf is a global / service configuration file.  **not** a user
configuration file.  AFAIK...the lookups in smb.conf are sequential.  Is
this correct?  In this case user configuration information in a text
file would be a major performance hit for a large site.

However, certain account information is needed to make samba an equal
PDC to an NT PDC.  IMHO, the information you desire would be better
stored in the password database.  I understand that Jeremy does not want
to add any more information into the smbpasswd file for reasons that the
inforamtion would be extraneous for those not using samba as a PDC.  
However, since a password API is in the works, why not take the
following approach...
	
- If you want the extra user information, use the LDAP backend

- The smbpasswd backend would simply return what was deemed as "default"
settings which would be hardcoded / Compiler time / whatever.

In other words, have the password API get the information for the user /
group but have the backend implement whatever was desired.

Again let me state that I really don't think user account information
should go into smb.conf.  Rather put it with the other user information.
Your password API insulates you enough which is really what it is
designed for.



For what it's worth,
j-
________________________________________________________________________
                            Gerald ( Jerry ) Carter	
Engineering Network Services                           Auburn University 
jerry at eng.auburn.edu             http://www.eng.auburn.edu/users/cartegw

       "...a hundred billion castaways looking for a home."
                                  - Sting "Message in a Bottle" ( 1979 )