[Samba] Storing passwords in LDAP, but not a PDC

Craig White craigwhite at azapple.com
Mon Mar 20 15:52:24 GMT 2006


On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 09:22 +0000, Robert Mortimer wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Is it possible to store samba passwords in ldap without configuring
> > samba as a PDC?  All the documents/references I've come across are
> > related to using LDAP as a samba PDC backend, not as just a db file
> > replacement.
> >
> > Thanks,
> 
> LDAP is a heavyweight store for massive amounts of passwords and extended
> data needed to for 100s or 1000s of PCs. In a workgroup there is no central
> password store. In a workgroup each windows (LINUX/Samba) machine has local
> users and would never consult a central authentication database so the LDAP
> would only hold accounts for the local Linux machine's users.
> 
> This is a Sledgehammer + nut situation
> 
> I suggest you look at the normal samba database
----
I'm not entirely certain that I agree with the characterizations that
you have used.

LDAP is a lightweight database system that is optimized for frequent
reads and infrequent writes. There are implementations of LDAP that can
be utilized for account management in UNIX/Linux (aka posix) and in
Windows (Samba - Microsoft Active Directory) and these implementations
often permit essentially complete integration into the underlying
user/group account management.

There are implementations that permit this structure to be shared among
other servers so that you can attain consistent user/group account
management across some/all host systems in a networked environment which
makes it attractive for thoughtful application.

It's not a sledgehammer + nut situation...it might be more trouble than
it's worth for some administrators to learn but I use it even on
networks with a small amount of users and computers because I have
gotten over the hurdle of learning the implementation and have enough
tools to manage things like user accounts and actually find it valuable,
even in small scale deployments.

Craig



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