[Samba] Really novice ques about /etc/passwd

Andrew Bartlett abartlet at pcug.org.au
Fri Mar 15 20:17:02 GMT 2002


Rick McDonnell wrote:
> 
> 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?

You cannot use the password in /etc/passwd unless you specificly patch
each of your client's Registry.  If the accounts line up, or there is a
defined mapping of windows -> unix accounts then I would suggest running
Samba in 'security = domain' mode (thats an smb.conf option) and join
the unix server to your windows domain.  

If you need to map users, see the 'username map' smb.conf option.  This
will use the existing accounts in /etc/passwd, just with windows
passwords.

Otherwise, your options are the plaintext password hack, or using
various 'password sync' methods to change both places when a user
changes their password.

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




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