[Samba] Re: v3.0.4-5 (Debian Sid) not Samba 3.0.5 - Can't change password

[Jonathan Johnson]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004, Laurent CARON wrote:

> Greg Folkert wrote:
> >
> >I had a very similar problem. My only fix I could actually find was to
> >completely remove all of the "generated" samba files (the .tbd files and
> >such) with samba and winbind not running. Then removing all the machine
> >accounts out of /etc/passwd, basically cleaning up to look just like
> >"just installed and never run yet"
> >
> >Then starting joining the machines again, then using a script to
> >generate the samba users from /etc/passwd... setting policies proper and
> >since then (two weeks ago) haven't had any problems.
> >
>
> Unfortunately it is a live environment
> 
> I can't remove the accounts :(
> 
> I'll try on a test environment
> 

There's a possibility that your password database (or another .tdb
database) may be corrupt. Not saying it is, just saying it could be.
Cleaning up the database is *very* easy:

1. Shut down smbd and nmbd (very important! see not below)

2. Go to each of the directories containing samba-related .tdb files
(i.e., /etc/samba ; /var/cache/samba or /var/lib/samba ; etc.) and
issue 'tdbbackup *'

3. This will create backup copies of your .tdb databases. Part of the
backup process is that it creates "clean" backups -- any entries that
are not quite right will be cleaned up or removed.

4. Restart Samba. As part of the startup process, Samba will detect the
clean .tdb files and use them if it detects that the "real" .tdb are
corrupt.

5. Check to make sure that all users are where they should be (hint:
'pdbedit -Lw' -or- 'pdbedit -Lv'). Recreate any users that have been
blown away; they've been removed because of corruption.

It's very important that Samba NOT be running when you back up your tdb
.files. Otherwise, you can not guarantee clean backups. Even if
you've done 'service samba stop' or 'rcsamba stop'; do a 'ps -ax' to
MAKE SURE smbd and nmbd are not running.

As per a tip I received from John Terpstra, it's a good idea to backup
these files (using tdbbackup) before starting Samba, every time.

--Jon Johnson Sutinen Consulting, Inc. 
jon at sutinen.com