[Samba] Is a password required for the Linux account?

[Rowland Penny]

On Fri, 4 May 2018 06:20:26 -0700 (MST)
Winfried via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm using Samba 4.5.12 on Debian 9.4, and would like to learn how to
> use the "valid users" option to limit read-write access to authorized
> users, which seems to require…
> 1. creating a Linux account in /etc/passwd,
> 2. creating a matching Samba account,
> 3. syncing both passwords using smbpasswd, where Samba sets its
> password, and then calls the Linux passwd utility to set the same
> password in /etc/shadow
> 
> By default, Nginx creates a www-data user, which I'd like to use so I
> can edit its htdocs files directly from a Windows host:
> [code]
> # cat /etc/passwd
> …
> www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
> [/code]
> 
> Am I correct in understanding that a password is _required_ for the
> Unix account, because when trying to access a Samba share from
> Windows, it goes like this : Windows → Samba → Unix, where Samba will
> pass on the username + password to Linux when accessing the
> filesystem?
> 

Wouldn't you be better off using a SSH login ?

What you are proposing doesn't sound very secure to me.

Rowland