[clue-tech] Samba Authentication

[David L. Anselmi]

Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:46:35 -0600
> David L. Anselmi wrote:
> 
>> I got to work some Samba authentication issues.  Samba requires an smb 
>> password even if you have an account on the samba machine.  So what's 
>> the best way to keep those sync'd (and especially to keep them sync'd 
>> with an account on Windows).  AD, I guess.
> 
> A bit more detail here? For really basic stuff, i.e. having the Windoze
> VM I bring up on occassion read a share on my Linux system, there's no
> need for a password. Same for printer shares, last time I had one
> running.

Well, this is basically for a home network.  So random W2k and XP boxes 
talk to the Samba server and there's no domain controller.

I guess the accounts on the Linux box don't matter so much.  But you'd 
like Samba and all the Windows machines to use the same password for 
each user, especially for unsophisticated users who won't remember 
changing a password yesterday.

So share security might work, but it'd be nice to distinguish users 
since they each have their own Windows accounts.

I don't see a way offhand that a local password change on Windows can be 
propagated to the Samba server (seems that Samba to Linux might be 
rather easy though).

So you're right, LDAP is the way the enterprise world does this.  And 
even in a small office I run a Samba domain controller.  But that's not 
quite easy enough at home for someone without Windows admin experience.

Though you know, that might not be a bad project to take on.  Once it's 
set up the DC runs itself.  And the add user and add machine directions 
are easy.  (The hard part is figuring out the difference between local 
and domain accounts for permissions and such.)

Dave