samba - Jul 2008 - Simple configuration I always have trouble with

My most common use of Samba is to export the home directories and possibly
some others from a Linux server so that people working on local Windows
boxes can easily move files to and from the Linux box.  All these people
have user accounts on the Linux box, so I just want them to authenticate
using that.

I've had this running on several servers at home, including one that's
still extant.  But I spent far too much time yesterday at work trying to
get the same thing working here, and I can't.  Then I went home and
examined my working config there, and I can't find what I'm doing
differently.

I've tried both using the SWAT settings for exporting home directories in
general, and manually configuring them (the working config at home uses
manual configs for them).  I've tried both USER and SHARE authentication
(USER really should be what I want here).  I'm using the "connect as a
different user" link on Windows to try to establish the connection, but
I've also tried putting in a user map that maps my Windows user name to my
Linux user name. I've made sure to stop and restart Samba when I changed
the configs, but often the Windows response changes when I change
something, and then doesn't change back when I change it back.

Am I maybe encountering a problem because my Windows box at work is a
member of a real Windows domain already?  Can that be conflicting with
connecting to an outside server, not part of the domain?  Is there a way
around this problem?  I seem to remember successfully connecting to a
non-domain Samba server from a windows box in a domain two jobs ago, but
that was Windows 98 and some rather old Samba version (around 1999).

I'm trying to find how to turn on more logging (I need to look up the
details of the arguments to see what exactly they control), but right now
it looks like the name lookup is happening but no actual connect is coming
in to smbd.  Is that a clue?

I'd be grateful for any useful suggestions!

I'd sure love to see this use case in "Samba By Example"
<http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/>.  In fact, why
isn't
there a SWAT wizard case for it?
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
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