Best way to centralize my systems

[Keith R. Baker]

I have a mixed windows/linux environment.  User/Password is an absolute
mess.  Every server has its own set.  What is the easiest way to set this
up?  Should I start from scratch and use both SMB passwords and NIS?  I
have seen PAM modules which do authentication.  Could I use straight SMB
to do my user authentication?  I think this would be better than NIS as it
is encrypted (if I turn encryption on).  Correct me if I am wrong but the
only way to get encryption to work is to use the smb password file?  Its
just a pain when I already have users setup on my machine.  Does anyone
have a good working solution for this problem?
						Keith