samba - Jun 2005 - Samba, OS X Tiger 10.4 plain text password, username null-padded?

Our samba server is running Solaris 9 and Samba 3.0.2.a . For reasons
*outside the scope of this question* we are using plaintext passwords
and authenticating via our NFS server. (I know this isn't a great
idea, but that's not the question)

With Panther, plaintext passwords worked fine. Snooping, I see the
plain text password and username go through.

With Tiger, we first had to apply this small fix to the client to
enable plain text passwords:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301580

Once this was done, snooping an smbclient connection, I see the plain
text password and the username but they are null-padded.
Authentication works. But when Tiger attempts to mount an smb share
via the GUI, I see the password NOT null-padded and the username
PADDED, and this fails.

Can anyone comment on this? I realize that the sane thing to do is
switch to encrypted passwords, but if we don't want to do that right
now for whatever reason, are there any other suggestions? Has anyone
else seen this behavior? Am I correct in calling this a Tiger bug?

thanks Betsy

On 6/15/05, Elizabeth Schwartz <betsy.schwartz@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Our samba server is running Solaris 9 and Samba 3.0.2.a . For reasons
> *outside the scope of this question* we are using plaintext passwords
> and authenticating via our NFS server
(that should be NIS server, sorry!)

Elizabeth Schwartz wrote:
> Once this was done, snooping an smbclient connection, I see the plain
> text password and the username but they are null-padded. 
> Authentication works. But when Tiger attempts to mount an smb share
> via the GUI, I see the password NOT null-padded and the username
> PADDED, and this fails.  
> thanks Betsy
This list deals with the samba server side.  The smbmount stuff for linux is
kernel code and so is dealt with on another list.  But whatever Apple have
done to the code you need to ask Apple.  Don't expect any response though.

Yours, longtime Mac user.

Geoff

Elizabeth Schwartz wrote:
> On 6/15/05, Geoff Scott <geoffs@guestshire.com> wrote:
>> This list deals with the samba server side.  The smbmount stuff for
>> linux is kernel code and so is dealt with on another list.  But
>> whatever Apple have done to the code you need to ask Apple.  Don't
>> expect any response though. 
> 
> Er... ok. No linux in this picture though,
 
Yep I know.  My point is that this list only deals with the Samba server.
> Samba server on Solaris
> and OS X Tiger client. 
> I'm wondering if this is a bug in OS X, or in Samba, and/or if anyone
> else has seen this and gotten Samba to work with OS X and plaintext
> passwords  
> 
IIRC you said you could connect with smbclient but not with finder?  Then
this is a finder problem.
> Maybe we're the last ones still using plaintext passwords....
> 
> thanks Betsy
And the other part of it was that you would get more help pertinent to your
problem from Apple.  There have been quite a few problems that people have
had and asked about on this list to do with upgrading to Tiger.  Apple makes
quite a few changes to code that the upstream developers in many FOSS
projects seem to find unuseable for the main project, and that they are not
party to.  Because your problem seems to stem from Tiger I am being helpful
in (unhelpfully) suggesting that you ask Apple.

Regards Geoff Scott