[Samba] Samba authentication problem

[Xamindar]

I'm coming back to this problem after giving it a rest for a while. I 
find it hard to believe that no one sets up authentication with security 
set to share. Is that really the case? Is share security deprecated and 
untested or something? As no one was able to point out what I did wrong 
in my config before, I decided to try setting this scenario up on a 
completely different system which runs a different distro (same version 
of samba afaik).  I am having the same exact problem on this other 
machine so it must be a config issue or samba just doesn't work this 
way. This time I am testing it by trying to connect to it from a windows 
xp and vista machine. Both machines keep re-prompting me for the userid 
and password of the share over and over again after I type the correct 
password. Why is it so impossible to have a simple username authenticate 
to a share? At this point to have a little security, I have to make them 
all guest access read only as nothing else works in this mode. I don't 
mean to sound a little frustrated but I would have thought samba would 
be a little more robust than that by now.

If it just isn't meant to work this way can someone help me out a little 
and explain it? I have read through the docs and explanations of the 
different options many times and can't find a reason it shouldn't work. 
Thanks for any help, I don't know what else to do.

On 3/24/2011 1:00 PM, Xamindar wrote:
> Hi, I have asked around in other forums but no one seems to know why
> this doesn't work.
>
> I have a backup server with samba on it and am trying to set it up to
> only allow write access when a user authenticates but to allow reading
> from anyone (guest). At this time I have guest disabled and a minimal
> config set up as shown below to try to narrow down the problem.
>
> I have added the user "xamindar" using smbpasswd on the server. I then
> tried to mount the backup share from another machine with the following
> command:
> mount -t cifs //chiroru/backup /mnt/temp -o username=xamindar
>
> But I keep getting the following response:
> mount error(13): Permission denied
> Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)
>
> Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here? I am sure I have missed
> something. It is possible to authenticate per share with share level
> security is it not? I just can't get authentication to work no matter
> what I have tried on this machine. With guest enabled it will just use
> the guest account and that works fine.
> Thanks for any help, I am pulling my hair out here.
>
>
> ***smb.conf***
> [global]
>          server string = Backup and Multimedia server
>          security = SHARE
>          smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/passdb.tdb
>          load printers = No
>          disable spoolss = Yes
>          show add printer wizard = No
>          write list = xamindar
>          printing = bsd
>          print command = lpr -r -P'%p' %s
>          lpq command = lpq -P'%p'
>          lprm command = lprm -P'%p' %j
>          map hidden = Yes
>          map system = Yes
>
> [backup]
>          path = /mnt/user/backup
>
> **************