[Samba] Newbie question, Making samba use the /etc/passwd file instead of smbpasswd

[Simon Hobson]

Andrew Brampton wrote:

>Basically I've just installed FreeBSD 4.5 and Samba 2.2.2_3 (most likly not
>the lastest but came with my distro)... I noticed that samba seems to use a
>different set of users and passwords to the normal login usernames and
>passwords, but I would like them to use the same set.

This is covered in the documentation, but quickly ...

Both Unix and SMB/Windows use encrypted passwords, BUT, the encryption used
is different and in principal both are one-way encryptions - ie the plain
text cannot be derived from the encrypted version*. Therefore, both
versions of encrypted password must be stored.

If you have things set up right, then the smbpasswd program can be made to
call the unix passwd program to keep both synced. Ie, you use smbpasswd to
change your Samba password, and it will call passwd to change the unix
password to be the same.

Simon

* Both may be cracked, typically by brute force methods, but neither may be
de-crypted by trivial means.

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Simon Hobson, Technical Services Engineer
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