[Samba] Synchronize changing of the WinXP user password to the smbpasswd (without PDC)

Gary Dale garydale at torfree.net
Wed Feb 21 02:37:23 GMT 2007


ron_smb wrote:
> Is there a way to synchronize changing a user's WindowsXP password 
> with the smbpasswd?
>
> I configured a basic Samba server (3.0.10) with password encryption 
> enabled.  When I
> created the smbpasswd file, I used the same username:passwords as the 
> WindowsXP user
> accounts.  After the initial connection, users can login and map the 
> network shares seamlessly.
>
> Users are required to change they WindowsXP password every 90 days.  
> It is possible to
> change the smbpasswd from WinXP using the "Logon Information 
> Properties" GUI.  But
> there are alot of steps and some of the pre-filled fields are wrong.
>
> Start | Control Panel | User Accounts | <username> | Related Tasks 
> "Manage My Network Passwords"
> Select the server in the Stored User Names and Password windows and 
> click Properties.
> In the Logon Information Properties window change the default UserName 
> field* to smbpasswd.
> Click Change...  Enter the old password and the new password.
>
> * The UserName field is pre-filled with either "MACHINE\USER" or 
> "USER at SERVER", strip-off
> the MACHINE or SERVER, leaving just the USER name.
> I am looking for DOS command similar to the NET USER command
>   c:\> NET USER username {password|*}                    changes the 
> Windows account
>   c:\> NET USER username {password|*}  /DOMAIN   does not work, since 
> there's no PDC
>
> I would like to write a batch file to keep the smbpasswd and Windows 
> in synch.
>
> TIA
I'm missing something here perhaps, but your question barely makes 
sense. To change a Windows password, the user does a ctrl-alt-del and 
selects change password.

To keep it in synch with Samba, in smb.conf set
  unix password sync = Yes
  passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
  passwd chat = *Enter\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n 
*Retype\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n 
*passwd:\spassword\supdated\ssuccessfully*

The exact passwd chat may need to be adjusted for your server. Every 
time the user changes their Windows password, the Samba password gets 
updated too.

This does not work on Windows XP/Home, which doesn't recognize network 
logins.



More information about the samba mailing list