[Samba] Usernames in /etc/passwd vs domain (Domain Member Setup)

[Rowland Penny]

On 22/09/2022 00:00, Eddie Rowe via samba wrote:
> I am new to Samba and working to understand things since I have an existing Samba server joined to Active Directory as a domain member.  I have been reading the O'Reilly Samba book to get oriented to things and now setting up a test server.  So as to not muddy the water with distribution specific instructions I have been working off the Samba wiki<https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_Samba_as_a_Domain_Member> to setup a test system.  Under the section "Configuring the Name Service Switch" the wiki states "Do not use the same user names in the local /etc/passwd file as in the domain.".  I am afraid this is how things are setup today on the existing server.  Any suggestions for what I can review in the Wiki or Samba site to understand how I can bring our setup into one that would be a standard setup?  Today the process for giving someone access to a Samba share involves killing winbind, adding the local account, adding the group that corresponds to the share, restarting winbind.

The username on Linux is found by going through /etc/nsswitch.conf, 
which usually is in a form like this: passwd files winbind

The above line means that when you run something like 'getent passwd 
username', /etc/passwd is checked first (the 'files' bit) and if not 
found, then winbind is asked. This means that if the username is in 
/etc/passwd and AD, the local user will be used first.

There is absolutely no reason to have the same username in /etc/passwd 
and in AD.

If I run:

getent passwd rowland

on a Unix domain member, I get this:

rowland:*:11104:10513::/home/rowland:/bin/bash

but running:

grep 'rowland' /etc/passwd

Produces no output

Rowland