Samba PDC password sync

[Damian Sweeney]

A few months ago we changed from Samba 2.07 running on plain text passwords 
to Samba 2.2.0a running as a PDC.  During the transition the smb.conf had the 
following global settings:

encrypt passwords = no
update encrypted = yes
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd

This allowed us to automatically update the smbpasswd file (i.e. passwords 
moving from *nix to Window$) as users logged into the network.  After most 
users had been through this process, we switched to:

encrypted passwords = yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *password* %n\n *password* %n\n *successful*
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd

Update encrypted was then omitted (because it doesn't work with encryption 
on), but whenever a user arrived saying they couldn't use a resource on the 
*nix box that needed their old password (perhaps because they didn't log on 
in the transition period), we simply give them a temporary samba password and 
get them to change it on a Window$ box.  This updates both the smbpasswd and 
passwd files (and shadow).

We are running RedHat 7.1 and this password syncing has worked from Win9x and 
Win2k machines.  You may need to adjust the passwd program = and/or passwd 
chat = parameters to suit your *nix.

Hope that helps,

Damian.