[Samba] "net rpc vampire" case sensitivity problem

[Ed Ravin]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 11:58:50PM +0000, John H Terpstra wrote:
[quoting trimmed down for clarity]

> >Have there been any bug fixes to the 'vampire' function since 3.0.1?
> >While I understand the cause of the case sensitivity problems, I think
> >this still needs more attention - perhaps all names should be forced to
> >lower case? Lets just say that my previous experience didn't exactly
> >inspire confidence in the system I was setting up - hence we are still
> >on an NT4 domain controller.
...

> The problem you refer to is not a 'net rpc vampire' issue. This is
> specifically an issue pertaining to the host operating system that Samba
> is running on.

Yes, but Samba has hooks (add user script, add group script, add machine
script) that are meant to let it interface with the operating system.
Whatever interface Samba chooses to use should allow for problems like
this.

> In the Samba-HOWTO-Collection chapter on Migration I have provided a shell
> script that can be used to get around this OS problem. The script is in
> Example 12.1, called "smbgrpadd.sh". You can easily craft a similar script
> to handle addition of user accounts.

I use scripts like that already.  They work fine for group mapping, since
I can create a group named "nt540" and use "net groupmap" to map it to
something like "Domain Manipulators".  Or I can map the Unix group "users"
to "Domain Users".

But I don't see how that will help me with usernames.  Creating mixed-case
usernames is not an option for my environment.  It looks like the right
thing to do is to either store a mapping from NT to Unix usernames in
the backend, and if I'm not hallucinating it appears Samba is already
doing that.  All I need is access to that field and I can fix this as
part of the "import from NT" process.

If I am hallucinating and Samba isn't using that field for username
mapping, then a simple option in smb.conf for lower-casing usernames
before trying getpwnam() will fix things too.

If we're going to get people to put their Windows Server install CDs
into the trash and migrate their domains to Samba, we need to make
this process a bit easier.  Having "net rpc vampire" produce an
import script rather than doing the import itself will go a long
way towards that, since it gives the admin a chance to patch any
problems.

PS: I found the HOWTO docs very useful, the time you spent working on them
is very much appreciated here!


	-- Ed