[Samba] samba credentials file - hit and miss?

[Aldo Foot]

Greetings,

I'm using a CentOS 5.4 Virtual Machine and Samba 3.0.33-3.15.el5_4 to access a
file share from a Windows XP host. I also tried the same using a
Fedora 10 VM with
the same negative results. Please read on.

I've browsed the web and read the mount.cifs man page. And the conclusion
is the same: you connect to a share using a username and password and you're
good to to. Or, create a credentials file with a username and password
and you're good to go. Very straightforward. But the credentials file
does not work for me... but others claim it works for them.
For me, using the username and password at the CLI works fine though.

I used these threads as examples and I have done pretty much the same.
   http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2004-October/094265.html
   http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/samba.htm

My credentials file /etc/samba/smbpassword is very simple.

$ cat smbpassword
user=jdoe
password=XXXXX

Some say to use spaces like "user = jdoe", but makes no difference.

Is this a samba bug? I can share more details of what I've done if requested.
~af