samba - Nov 2006 - noobie winbind question

Oh great samba gurus,

I am confused about what winbind provides.  I believe that in a network
with a Windows PDC winbind allows windows domain users to access
resources on a Linux Samba server.  However, from the Samba-3 Howto:

Winbind provides three separate functions: 

      *   Authentication of user credentials (via PAM). This makes it
        possible to log onto a UNIX/Linux system using user and group
        accounts from a Windows NT4 (including a Samba domain) or an
        Active Directory domain. 
        
Does that mean that with a Samba PDC with winbindd running, samba users
could log onto a Linux machine without having a Linux user account? 

Thanks,

-- 
Steve Glasser <steve@fpig.net>

hi
> Does that mean that with a Samba PDC with winbindd running, samba users
> could log onto a Linux machine without having a Linux user account? 
yes, winbindd can retrieve the required information from an AD-/ 
NT-domain and dynamically map windows accounts to linux accounts.

on a PDC winbindd is only necessary if you want to have ntlm_auth for 
some apps or map users from trusted domains

greez
> 
> Thanks,
>