Hello, It seems that many people out there are now using ldap as their backend instead of /etc/passwd for samba accounts. SuSE makes this particularly easy because they have a YAST module that does most of the work in linking Samba and Openldap. So I created all my users in the LDAP directory. Then I proceeded to make the machine trust accounts for windows 2000/XP clients but the directory does not seem to accept the $ after the netbios name. Is there any reason I can't just have the samba authentication backend in the LDAP directory but the machine trust group and the machine trust accounts in the /etc/passwd file? Thanks so much! Mike Partyka Stonepath Logistics Systems Administrator (651)405-4300 Desk (651)208-5734 Cell (651)405-4342 Fax