samba - Mar 2003 - why user nobody

Hello,
today i deleted the user "nobody" (entry 
"nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin" in /etc/passwd) on my
samba-server.
As result, no user could log in to domain anymore.
Does anybody know, what the user "nobody" plays for a role in samba?

Gerd M?ller,
St. Petersburg


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Gerd,

	The user 'Nobody' is an important "User" account on your
Linux/UNIX system. Under Linux/UNIX each application runs as a
particular user with the rights that the user has. 

	What has happened is a service that is set to run as the user
'nobody' can no longer run. This service is likely linked to the
authentication process. 

	If you recreate the entry that you just deleted, then Samba
should work once more.

	I would highly recommend that you pick up one or more books on
Linux/UNIX. Look for something that calls itself an introduction to
Linux or UNIX. Unfortunately, I don't have the one book on me that I am
thinking of, but I can say that the book did an excellent job of filling
me in on User and Group accounts, plus it explained how processes and
services are ran in Linux and UNIX.

	Linux/UNIX is like life in many ways, you can always learn
something new ever day and it opens up new horizons that you never knew
existed before. I can only recommend to keep plugging away and to read
as many books as possible on the subject, even books that cover the same
topic as one will likely cover a topic slightly different and expose a
few more very useful tidbits of information. 

	Good luck!

Regards,
Robert Adkins II
IT Manager/Buyer
Impel Industries, Inc.
586-254-5800


-----Original Message-----
From: samba-bounces+radkins=impelind.com@lists.samba.org
[mailto:samba-bounces+radkins=impelind.com@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of
Gerd M?ller
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 10:56 AM
To: samba@lists.samba.org
Subject: [Samba] why user nobody

Hello,
today i deleted the user "nobody" (entry 
"nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin" in /etc/passwd) on my
samba-server. 
As result, no user could log in to domain anymore.
Does anybody know, what the user "nobody" plays for a role in samba?

Gerd M?ller,
St. Petersburg


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The default configuration of samba should try to map the guest account to
user nobody.  The guest account is important for various smb functions,
is is probably *always* used by smbd and nmbd.  One of this is probably
crashing if it cannot find the guest account user.  Check your logs to see
if any information is being printed there.

As someone already pointed out, noboby is an important conceptual user in
Unix/Linux.  Don't worry, it isn't a security risk.  It should not be
possible to login as nobody.  However, processes that are running as root
can drop their permissions to "nobody" to make their operation more
secure
on the system.


On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, [iso-8859-15] Gerd M=FCller wrote:

Hello,
today i deleted the user "nobody" (entry
"nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin" in /etc/passwd) on my
samba-server.
As result, no user could log in to domain anymore.
Does anybody know, what the user "nobody" plays for a role in samba?

Gerd M=FCller,
St. Petersburg


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