samba - Apr 2008 - Username case mangling -- Linux username is mixed-case, Samba returns lower-case

I have a problem that I first observed when I upgraded from
3.0.24 to 3.0.28 and is, I believe, related to the introduction
of the "printjob username" configuration parameter.

I print via CUPS and the Cups-PDF driver wants to know the
Linux username (so it can put the PDF in the proper location).

The problem is that "printjob username = %U" results in
a lowercase username ("steve"), even though the Linux account
is "Steve".  The Samba logs clearly show me authenticating
as "Steve" and the last message I see (with logging at 20)
with an obvious user name shows me connecting to the
Cups-PDF printer share with username "Steve".  But, the
Cups logs show a username of "steve" -- which ends up mapped
to anonymous.

I see I'm not the first to observe this change:
http://www.mail-archive.com/samba@lists.samba.org/msg85076.html

Linux prints fine to Cups-PDF, the username in the Cups logs
is shown as "Steve", and the older samba (3.0.24 on Fedora
Core 6) printed fine with username "Steve", it just seems
to be the newer Samba is lowercasing the username.
"%U" give "steve", "%u", "%$USER",
"%$(USER)" are all taken
literally (i.e. "%u" gives "%u").  Is there anyway to
get Samba to output the *real* Linux username?

As an aside.... while checking the samba documentation, I saw
references to how Linux usernames should "always" be all lower
case.  Why?  I've had mixed-case names for over 6 years and
am unaware of any problems until now.  Certainly, standard
tools let you create mixed-case usernames without complaint.

TIA,
Steve



     
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On Tue 8 Apr  2008 12:56:45 pm Steve Briggs wrote:
>
> As an aside.... while checking the samba documentation, I saw
> references to how Linux usernames should "always" be all lower
> case.  Why?  I've had mixed-case names for over 6 years and
> am unaware of any problems until now.  Certainly, standard
> tools let you create mixed-case usernames without complaint.
>
> TIA,
> Steve
>
Basically...for exactly the problem you have here.  That's a convention
that's
been around for many years, for various reasons.  First, you'll occasionally
run into problems like that.  Second, on large production environments, if 
you allow mixed case usernames people will forget them daily; it's best to 
just say lowercase only.  Third, you never know when you might need to expand 
into a system that *is* case sensitive.  

On modern Linux systems it's not such a problem, but it used to be, and the 
Proper Ettiquite for Systems Administrators Guidebook still says lowercase. 

I'll note that Debian and children do not, by default, allow uppercase
names:

root@skeletor:/home/wes# adduser YonNewblette
adduser: Please enter a username matching the regular expression configured
via the NAME_REGEX[_SYSTEM] configuration variable.  Use the
`--force-badname'
option to relax this check or reconfigure NAME_REGEX or NAME_REGEX_SYSTEM.

root@skeletor:/home/wes# adduser yonnewblette
Adding user `yonnewblette' ...


And I would submit that no well-behaved GNU/Linux system should allow 
uppercase in usernames.

Unfortunately, I can't help you with your -actual- problem.  As a
workaround,
you could create a second username, "steve", with the same UID/GID and
$HOME,
and add it to the "Steve" group and it should work effectively the
same way.
I don't like workarounds, but if it's a toLower() in the Samba code then
you're either SOL or you'll have to change the code.

Wes


>
>
>      
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>_________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month
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On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 09:56:45AM -0700, Steve Briggs
wrote:
> I have a problem that I first observed when I upgraded from
> 3.0.24 to 3.0.28 and is, I believe, related to the introduction
> of the "printjob username" configuration parameter.
> 
> I print via CUPS and the Cups-PDF driver wants to know the
> Linux username (so it can put the PDF in the proper location).
> 
> The problem is that "printjob username = %U" results in
> a lowercase username ("steve"), even though the Linux account
> is "Steve".  The Samba logs clearly show me authenticating
> as "Steve" and the last message I see (with logging at 20)
> with an obvious user name shows me connecting to the
> Cups-PDF printer share with username "Steve".  But, the
> Cups logs show a username of "steve" -- which ends up mapped
> to anonymous.
I think you want to use '%u', not '%U'. From the man page :

       %U
          session username (the username that the client wanted, not necessarily
the same  as  the  one
          they got).

this is the incoming Windows username. %u is :

       %u
          username of the current service, if any.

which is a UNIX username.

Jeremy.

--- Steve Briggs <zzybaloobah@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- Jeremy Allison <jra@samba.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 09:56:45AM -0700, Steve Briggs wrote:
> > > I have a problem that I first observed when I upgraded from
> > > 3.0.24 to 3.0.28 and is, I believe, related to the introduction
> > > of the "printjob username" configuration parameter.
> > > 
> > > I print via CUPS and the Cups-PDF driver wants to know the
> > > Linux username (so it can put the PDF in the proper location).
> > > 
> > > The problem is that "printjob username = %U" results in
> > > a lowercase username ("steve"), even though the Linux
account
> > > is "Steve".  The Samba logs clearly show me
authenticating
> > > as "Steve" and the last message I see (with logging at
20)
> > > with an obvious user name shows me connecting to the
> > > Cups-PDF printer share with username "Steve".  But, the
> > > Cups logs show a username of "steve" -- which ends up
mapped
> > > to anonymous.
> > 
> > I think you want to use '%u', not '%U'. From the man
page :
> > 
> >        %U
> >           session username (the username that the client wanted, not
necessarily the same  as
> > the  one
> >           they got).
> > 
> > this is the incoming Windows username. %u is :
> > 
> >        %u
> >           username of the current service, if any.
> > 
> > which is a UNIX username.
> > 
> > Jeremy.
> > 
> Well, as I tried to explain in my original posting, 
> I tried "%u", but (at least for the printjob username 
> parameter) "%u" didn't get mapped to *anything*
> ... it just went through as "%u".    I noted in
> the documentation that not every substitution 
> necessarily works in all cases; this seems like
> a case where only(?) "%U" gets mapped.
> 
> I can try "%u" again, I assumed it should work
> and was surprised when it didn't....
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion...
> 
> Steve
I tried "%u" again... it just gets mapped to "%u".
Similarly, %$USER, %$(USER), %($USER) are all taken
literally.  In each case, the "printjob username" 
parameter doesn't recognize it as a variable requiring 
substitution at all....

Any other ideas, or is samba just broken here and
I need to make extra usernames with lower case?
....sigh

TIA,
Steve


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