How to sync /etc/smbpasswd with /etc/passwd ?

[Chris Knox]

According to Christian Barth <barth at cck.uni-kl.de>:

> Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 16:54:42 +0000
> From: Christian Barth <barth at cck.uni-kl.de>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <samba at samba.org>, Lars Steinke <steinke at hpcip00
> .physik.uni-freiburg.de>
> Subject: Re: How to sync /etc/smbpasswd with /etc/passwd ?
> Message-ID: <199812081559.QAA23706 at fbk.mv.uni-kl.de>
> 
> 
> > On Tue, Dec 08, 1998 at 10:15:21AM +0000, Christian Barth wrote:
> > > > I just want a /etc/smbpasswd generated from my /etc/passwd with the correc
> t=
> > > > passwords as used for the UniX login...
> > > > Is that possible ?
> > > No!
> > > 
> > > It is not possible to confert the encrypted /etc/passwd passwords to 
> > > encrypted /etc/smbpasswd passwords without knowing the clear text 
> > > password.
> > 
> > Yes, that's obvious. Let me rephrase my question:
> > Can I generate a /etc/smbpasswd file from my /etc/passwd BUT use the passwords
> > in /etc/passwd for authentication ?
> > A sysadmin can't really be asked to generate a /etc/smbpasswd and THEN ask all
> > users to fill in a password using the smbpasswd command !
> > 
> > Or perhaps it is possible to use /etc/smbpasswd but just put some placeholder
> > +::::: in like for NIS which will fill in the users in /etc/passwd ???
> I'm not sure what you want to do.
> In the samba package there is ah shell skript called like 
> "mksmbpasswd". It uses /etc/passwd to bild an smbpasswd with all 
> "XXXXXXX.....XXX" as passwords. You can then use "update encrypted" 
> to generate the encrypted passwords as soon as samba fetches a 
> plain text password of a user. 
> 
> But propably that's not what you are looking for.
> 
> Christian

This sounds like a candidate for some sort of user-friendly client, 
perhaps a cgi that one could ask a user to invoke through a web page, 
then generate the encrypted string which would be dropped into the 
smbpasswd.  It's exactly the thing that is lacking in many Unix server/
PC client applications, particularly in database applications.

On a somewhoat related note, is there a way to cause Samba to recognize 
that the user has been authenticated so they don't have to enter their
password a second time at login time when they mount the Samba drive?
Or is my configuration lacking (highly likely!).

Chris


-- 
Chris Knox                                               cknox at hypercom.com
Hypercom, Inc.                                               (602) 504-5888
Unix Systems Support                              Speaking only for myself.