samba - Nov 2002 - A way to automate smbpasswd file from /etc/passwd

I am looking for a way to automate the creation of the samba encrypted 
password file from the linux /etc/passwd file?

I know that I can tranfer all the users over using mksmbpasswd file, but 
for some reason it doesn't transfer over the linux passwords also?  I 
was wondering if that would be possible in a future release?

Thank you for your time and help

Philippe