[Samba] Re: Simple LDAP backend question

[Jamrock]

"Ryan Novosielski" <novosirj at umdnj.edu> wrote in message
news:477D2C28.7070705 at umdnj.edu...
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> Is it required to use LDAP for both POSIX/UNIX accounts and for Samba,
> or can one move only the smbpasswd file to LDAP without impacting the
> standard UNIX passwd file at all?

Interesting question.  Just a little background info. so we are all on the
same page.

Each Samba user must have a Linux (POSIX) account in order to access the
Linux machine.  It must also have some Samba (Windows) information for it to
work as a Windows domain controller.

If you use the smbldap tools to manage the addition and deletion of users,
they will add the POSIX and the Samba user info to the LDAP directory.  This
will happen because your add user script in the smb.conf file will point to
the relevant smbldap add user script.

You would typically configure the /etc/nsswitch.conf file to tell the Linux
machine to look for user names and passwords in the LDAP directory.  That
way the user does not need to exist in the /etc/passwd file.

So far so good.

I understand from what you are saying that you want to
separate the POSIX (Linux) information from the Samba information.  You want
to keep the POSIX information in the /etc/passwd file and the Samba
information in the LDAP directory.  Each user's authentication information
will be stored in both locations.

To do this you should not use the add user script from the smbldap tools.
Instead use the standard Linux "add user" command in a script to add the
user.  I have done this in the past.  It adds Samba info. to LDAP and
creates the user account in the /etc/passwd file.

Your smb.conf file should look something like

add user script = /usr/sbin/useradd -m '%u'

add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -M '%u'

add group script = /usr/sbin/groupadd '%g'

Typically I use the User Manager for Domains to add and delete users.  Not
sure how things will work with other tools.

I guess you can use the smbldap tools to populate the LDAP database with the
standard Windows users and groups but use the Linux commands in the add user
script.

I haven't tried this since the early versions of Samba 3.x.  Let me know how
it works out.