hi all, this is the scenario -- 1) 500 users using Windows98, 2) RedHat Linux 6.0 running Samba 2.0.3, 3) encrypted passwords, 4) Samba as domain authentication server. so far, i've managed to automate the adding of users to /etc/passwd and /etc/smbpasswd. my questions are: 1) how do i synchronize the users in /etc/passwd to /etc/smbpasswd? 2) if i delete the user in /etc/passwd how would samba know and would it delete the user from /etc/smbpasswd also? 3) how do i assign an initial password to *all* the users and letting them change it via windows? do i have to set it for all one by one? how would they change it [password] via windows? 4) windows asks for a password *twice*, one for microsoft networking and one for windows logon -- which is which? which one is honored by samba? 5) i've seen some entries in the logfile about `nobody' having no access to a share / directory / file. i've also seen some entries [in the logfile] from the current login user about it not having access to the share but still access it [the share]. is this normal? (btw, the machine is on another campus -- they don't have internet access in the lab so i can't attach the logfile here) Francis Vidal