Sync Passwords

[David Bannon]

At 10:36 AM 09/06/1999 +1000, Todd B. Blake wrote:
>I'm messing with the PDC code, and wzs wondering how well the password
>sync option works, to sync the password between /etc/passwd and
>smbpasswd.  Does it work?  Do both need to be the same at first? I'm
>kinda new to this(started yesterday) as far as the PDC goes, but have
>extensive samba experience.


The passwd sync system works (and has done so for some time), however it
has a problem in that it does not report to a user why it failed to change
a passwd. As most systems around these days have pretty strict rules about
what a legal passwd is (ie not a recognised word or part thereof) most
people find that their first (and more) attempts to set a password fail.
Samba does not go ahead when passwd fails but the message that passwd
generates is not shown to the user. The user is told that the passwd / user
name combination is unacceptable and the user assumes that it is their
origional password is wrong.

I have many angry users who complain that they are being told that their
'old' password is wrong when in fact, the problem is that their new
password is not good enough. 

-----

No, the passwords do not need to be the same before you start. The user
will be authenticated against the smbpasswd, if OK, samba uses the
(typically) passwd programme with root permission to set the unix password.

david


------------------------------------------------------------
David Bannon                      D.Bannon at latrobe.edu.au
School of Biochemistry            Phone 61 03 9479 2197
La Trobe University, Plenty Rd,   Fax   61 03 9479 2467
Bundoora, Vic, Australia, 3083    http://bioserve.latrobe.edu.au
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..... Humpty Dumpty was pushed !