Using UNIX passwords

Juan Carlos Castro y Castro
Thu, 26 Nov 1998 16:10:41 -0000

(To Marek: I don't know if you're familiar with Samba or if this
interests you.
I just thought it might be useful. Fell free to ask anything to me. :)

Gregor Mosheh, B.S. wrote:

> I'm sure this is a FAQ, though I couldn't find it in any FAQ or the
docs...
>
> How do I have Samba authenticate users via the local UNIX passwd file?

It can be done and it's fairly well documented in the docs, but there are a
couple of gotchas to it:

There's no clear bridge between UNIX password encryption and MS-Network
password encryption, so the only way passwords can be sent thru the wire is
cleartext. I think I needn't explain how bad it is, unless you run your LAN
behind a firewall.

Besides, more recent versions of WIndows (in all incarnations) don't take
too
well talking to a server in cleartext password. Some (like NT4) insist on
asking for your password again and again every time you pick a file or folder.
Huh huh. Huh huh. Windows sucks, man. Huh huh.

So I think the way to go is use of encrypted passwords in a separate smbpasswd
file, as described in the docs directory of the source package. It's a drag
to
manage, I know.

Hasn't anybody tweaked the passwd/useradd/userdel commands so it optionally
updates the smbpasswd file along with /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow? Hmm, maybe
I'll forward this message to the maintainer of the shadow suite. Matter of
fact, I'm doing it right now. :)

Cul8r,
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