[Samba] samba-tool user add - weird resulting

[Rowland Penny]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 16:33:57 +0200
Franta Hanzlik via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> Dne 2024.08.14 12:06, Rowland Penny via samba napsal:
> > On Wed, 14 Aug 2024 11:05:23 +0200
> > Franta Hanzlik via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> > 
> >> Rowland, thank you for response.
> >> But I still think there's nothing stopping Samba from being better
> >> than Windows at this, and introducing some switches like
> >>   --displayname
> >>   --commonname
> >>   --name
> >>   --exclude-initials-in-dn
> >> or something similar.
> >> 
> >> After all, what are the various attributes displayName/cn/name
> >> for, if they cannot be entered when creating a user.
> >> 
> > 
> > OK, the 'commonname' or 'cn' is also part of the users 'dn' or RDN
> > and the 'name' must also be the same as the 'cn'. You can use
> > whatever you like for the 'username' when creating a user, but
> > whatever is used will also populate the 'cn', 'name',
> > 'sAMAccountName' and 'distinguishedName' attributes.
> > 
> > You can also use the '--use-username-as-cn' to force the use of the
> > username for the 'cn' (and hence the other attributes).
> > 
> > There is nothing stopping you writing your own script around
> > 'samba-tool user add' to first create the user (using samba-tool)
> > and then modify it to your purposes, though I struggle to
> > understand why you would want to.
> > 
> > Rowland

First, what email client are you using ? When I try reply to your
posts, whatever you posted isn't in the reply, I have to copy into
place.

> The problem is the initials.
> If I understand their meaning and role correctly, initials are the
> first letters of the full user's name (first, middle, last name,..) - and
> what is important, they are/should be a separate element, not part of
> other forms of the name.
> 
> Just like is the 'United States' and is its abbreviation 'US', but the
> term 'United US States' is nonsense.
> Or, for example, my name is 'Franta Hanzlik', I have the initials
> 'FH', but the expression 'Franta FH Hanzlik' is nonsense.
> 
> And this is how entering initials using 'samba-tool user add' /
> 'samba-tool user rename' behaves badly: when I enter them in user add,
> they are stuffed into DN, displayName, name, distinguishedName,
> commonName - although I don't want them there and IMO they have
> nothing there do.

> And if I don't specify the initials in user add, then DN, cn,
> displayName, name, distinguishedName are as I want them (but the
> initials attribute is missing, of course).
> And when I add it then, using 'user rename', those initials are
> stuffed into and change DN, cn, displayName, name, distinguishedName.
> 
> This is wrong and no wrapper around 'samba-tool user {add,rename}' it
> won't do!

This must be a cultural thing, because the initial attribute to me
would contain the users initials for their middle name. Take my full
name 'Rowland Edward Penny', I would expect the initials attribute to
contain 'E.', which would make sense 'Rowland E. Penny'.

Also when I said write a script, I meant a script that would create the
user using samba-tool (without setting the users initials) and then use
ldbmodify to add the initials attribute.

Rowland