Suggestions & stuff

[Jean Francois Micouleau]

On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Mike Brodbelt wrote:

> > Server Manager?  User Manager?  Both of these qill require
> > possible editing of /etc/passwd (let's please not bring up
> > the machine accounts in /etc/passwd again ok?  At least
> > not for right now).
> 
> Technical considerations aside for a moment, these are two tools I do
> regard as important for Samba to support. I'm sure many installations of
> Samba come into contact with people who don't know Unix that well, if at
> all. If it's possible to turn round and say "you can use NT admin
> tools", then a big anti-Samba argument goes away from the ease of use
> angle.

Yesterday evening I added the rpc call: create_user to the HEAD branch.. 
Once I'm done with set_user_info and set_user_info2, we should be able to
add/nodify accounts from the user manager. 

> I fully appreciate the technical difficulties, and don't have answers to
> many of them yet, but I still feel the functionality is important. For
> Server Manager, I'd be happy with a set up where machine accounts were
> placed in a Samba specific file (tdb?), and then that file could be
> changed by the RPC mechanism, obviating the need for this service to
> muck with /etc/passwd, which I admit to a sense of unease about.

user and server manager have a lot in common. As soon as we have user
manager working, server manager will be trivial.

> I used to run NT clients on a Novell server, Each account could have
> valid logon times specfied on the server, and you'd be kicked off the
> system automatically when you reached the end of your approved hours. NT
> has all the same options, though I've not actually used them.

A bit of background explanation is necessary. Let me explain, we are
reluctant to add user management in samba that is not supported by the
underlying unix system. I would love to support the kick-out/password
change/... features of NT but only if the unix you use can support them
too. It's more a philosophical than a technical issue.

	J.F.