'$' in hostname in /etc/passwd

[nrvale0]

Hoping you can help with something that I did not find in the Samba
PDC FAQ nor in the mailing list archives for samba-ntdom...

In regards to having a hostname entry in /etc/passwd for each host that
will be connecting to the Samba PDC; what if it is just impossible to
have the '$' in the hostname? Is there some work around?

Our user management software checks usernames for special characters
and will not allow a username/hostname with a '$'. In addition, if I were to
hand edit /etc/passwd, the user management software will overwrite the
exiting /etc/passwd periodically and I would thus lose my hand edits. 

Is the '$' only used so that someone cannot do a "net view \\hostname"
on your PDC and get a list of workstation shares, or is it more
complicated than that?

Thanks.

-- 
---
Nathan Valentine - nathan at uky.edu
University of Kentucky Distributed Computing Systems Lab
AIM: NRVesKY ICQ: 39023424