[Samba] pam_smb maintainership..

[Andrew Bartlett]

Dave Airlie wrote:
> 
> Well it is with some regret that I must announce the impending end of my
> maintainership of pam_smb (some would question whether I ever did much :-)
> 
> Starting in May 2002 I'll be leaving Ireland, to travel as much of the
> world as I can possibly get in while (bank_balance + credit_cards > 0)!!
> I'll probably stop off in Australia for a while and see what contracting
> brings...
> 
> I think I'll release v2 before I go...
> 
> So the problem comes with selecting someone to carry on the project if
> there is a future in it beyond v2, the main things I can see being needed
> are security related issues and the like,
> 
> Things that need to be done before I leave are transferring the website to
> sourceforge and setting someone up as the mailing list contact..
> 
> So if anyone feels they are up to the job, or feels they want to have a go
> at maintaining it please contact me over the next while...

While pam_smb has filled a particular gap over the years, we now have a
much more elegent solution.  Particularly with the 'winbind use default
domain' option in HEAD, pam_winbind allows faster and much more reliable
authenication - using the domain trust account and the NT4 domain logon
protocols.

This does however require winbindd to run on the machine, and an account
in the domain, but it does mean that you don't have quite a large lump
of GPLed SMB client code inside every pam-using app...

Good luck with your travels, and thanks for your work over the years!

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                 abartlet at pcug.org.au
Manager, Authentication Subsystems, Samba Team  abartlet at samba.org
Student Network Administrator, Hawker College   abartlet at hawkerc.net
http://samba.org     http://build.samba.org     http://hawkerc.net