[Samba] Samba and XP hassles

[Chris Nash]

OK.

So here's my case:

I've been trying to get Samba configured to run as a domain controller for about a month now. The job is to add a domain controller to a workgroup of Windows XP Pro machines. It has been a long uphill struggle with lots of hope but little progress. Just when I was about to give up on Samba, someone suggested that I try in with a few other versions of Windows. 95, 98, NT4 and 2000 run sweetly and readily accept Samba as a domain controller. Shares, users, everything runs beautifully. They can browse and write shares to which they have permissions on a workgroup. Unfortunately that's not the job at hand. The initial smb.conf file has been setup using SWAT. I must say well done to the developers. User friendly is always difficult to configure.

 

Heard that XP was written not to work with Linux (Samba) and have become somewhat convinced through my experiences. Is this the truth? And is there a way around it?



I have applied the following XP registry patch to the machines: 
<http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/connect/csamba5.html>

The name of the workgroup differs from the domain.

Machine and user accounts have been made on the Linux box.

I have smbpasswd root.

Encrypted passwords are enabled.

 

The only hassle now is with the domain controller. Which is the most
essential part. The errors flag up on the XP machine as far as I can tell. I
have a sneaky feeling that the encryption is the problem.
When I try add the XP Machine to the domain it asks me for a username on the
XP machine. So I put it in, Chris and the password. Then computer name and
domain, Xipe02 XTT. Then it asks me for the name and password of someone who
has permission to join the domain. Cool. Administrator and password.
"Invalid username or bad password". OK. Linux Root and password. "Invalid
username or bad password". So now there is a user "Chris" on the Linux box
with root privileges (yes I know it's not good practice) and the same
password as on the XP machine. No luck. Chris and root can log onto samba
shares when network is a workgroup. No troubles. I don't seem to be getting any errors on the Linux side. Maybe I'm not looking in the right logs.

Any ideas?



Chris Nash 
Xipe ToTech Technologies
7 Church Square / PO Box 28
Graaff-Reinet
6280
chris at xtt.co.za
Cell:    083 5417815
Work: 049 8922789
Fax:    049 8922789