[Samba] Really novice ques about /etc/passwd

[Rick McDonnell]

I'm sorry but I've never installed Samba and as of a week ago I've never
even heard of it. Our team is evaluating different tools to connect to unix
file systems from windows 2000 and a question came up of whether or not
Samba would work with existing accounts in /etc/passwd?

I read some info on syncing with the smbpasswd file. Does one use cron to
sync up ever so often?

Thanks,
Rick