[Samba] nmbd fails to start - permission denied

Wed Oct 1 02:36:49 GMT 2008

Hello all,

I have a new RHEL5 host, with nothing installed that falls outside of
the Base package group (that I selected) plus the CUPS 1.2.4 and Samba
3.0.28 packages.

All I've done to date on this host is perform yum updates to installed
packages and set up configurations for Samba and CUPS.

Once all of that was in place, I started up Samba via the Red Hat
startup script, but nmbd failed to load.  The nmbd.log file indicates
that it can't open the smb.conf file, with the error "Permission
denied".  I've verified that unprivileged users can change into the
directory where the config file resides, and I've given full (777)
permissions to the file.  It also fails at boot time.

The funny thing is, if I execute it by hand at a shell prompt, it starts
just fine.  I tried using a script that I wrote from one of my AIX hosts
with the same version of Samba installed; same behaviour.  smbd starts
but not nmbd.

I opened a case with Red Hat support, but they're being less than
helpful and responsive at the moment, and I'm stumped.  I've been using
Samba off and on for over ten years, and have never seen this behaviour
before.

Full, debuglevel=10 log info attached below (smb.conf *is* where it
claims it can't be read).  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/debug.c:debug_dump_status(391)

  INFO: Current debug levels:

    all: True/10

    tdb: False/0

    printdrivers: False/0

    lanman: False/0

    smb: False/0

    rpc_parse: False/0

    rpc_srv: False/0

    rpc_cli: False/0

    passdb: False/0

    sam: False/0

    auth: False/0

    winbind: False/0

    vfs: False/0

    idmap: False/0

    quota: False/0

    acls: False/0

    locking: False/0

    msdfs: False/0

    dmapi: False/0

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 3] lib/fault.c:dump_core_setup(134)

  Maximum core file size limits now 16777216(soft) -1(hard)

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 0] nmbd/nmbd.c:main(698)

  Netbios nameserver version 3.0.28-1.el5_2.1 started.

  Copyright Andrew Tridgell and the Samba Team 1992-2007

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 3] param/loadparm.c:lp_load(5040)

  lp_load: refreshing parameters

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 3] param/loadparm.c:init_globals(1430)

  Initialising global parameters

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 0] param/params.c:OpenConfFile(536)

  params.c:OpenConfFile() - Unable to open configuration file
"/etc/samba/smb.conf":

        Permission denied

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 4] param/loadparm.c:lp_load(5071)

  pm_process() returned No

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 7] param/loadparm.c:lp_servicenumber(5209)

  lp_servicenumber: couldn't find homes

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 10] param/loadparm.c:set_server_role(4315)

  set_server_role: role = ROLE_STANDALONE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UCS-2LE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UCS-2LE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UTF-16LE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UTF-16LE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UCS-2BE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UCS-2BE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UTF-16BE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UTF-16BE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UTF8

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UTF8

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UTF-8

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UTF-8

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset ASCII

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset ASCII

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset 646

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset 646

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset ISO-8859-1

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset ISO-8859-1

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(105)

  Attempting to register new charset UCS2-HEX

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/iconv.c:smb_register_charset(113)

  Registered charset UCS2-HEX

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 5] lib/charcnv.c:charset_name(82)

  Substituting charset 'UTF-8' for LOCALE

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 3] nmbd/nmbd.c:reload_nmbd_services(261)

  services not loaded

[2008/09/30 22:02:40, 6] param/loadparm.c:lp_file_list_changed(3080)

  lp_file_list_changed()

  file /etc/samba/smb.conf -> /etc/samba/smb.conf  last mod_time: Wed
Dec 31 19:00:00 1969

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