hi, I have a samba share (/test) at the linux machine 192.168.10.222 (hostname bb222) and I configured the security level to 'SERVER' so that the authentication is done by a Windows 2003 server (192.168.1.41, hostname bloom03), below is the smb.conf : ============================ security = SERVER password server = bloom03 [test] path = /test writeable = yes guest ok = yes ============================ Here comes the problem I have : when I tried to connect the samba share \\192.168.10.222\test from a windows machine other than the windows 2003 authentication server, it is fine, below is the event log received : ============================================ event id : 680 Successful Network Logon: User Name: mary Domain: BLOOM03 Logon ID: (0x0,0x578C1) Logon Type: 3 Logon Process: NtLmSsp Authentication Package: NTLM Workstation Name: \\BB222 Logon GUID: - Caller User Name: - Caller Domain: - Caller Logon ID: - Caller Process ID: - Transited Services: - Source Network Address: 192.168.10.222 Source Port: 0 ----------------- event id : 540 Successful Network Logon: User Name: mary Domain: BLOOM03 Logon ID: (0x0,0x578C1) Logon Type: 3 Logon Process: NtLmSsp Authentication Package: NTLM Workstation Name: \\BB222 Logon GUID: - Caller User Name: - Caller Domain: - Caller Logon ID: - Caller Process ID: - Transited Services: - Source Network Address: 192.168.10.222 Source Port: 0 ----------------- event id : 538 User Logoff: User Name: mary Domain: BLOOM03 Logon ID: (0x0,0x578C1) Logon Type: 3 ============================================ However, when I tried to connect the same samba share from the windows 2003 directly, it failed with the following event log from the event viewer : ======================================= event id : 552 Logon attempt using explicit credentials: Logged on user: User Name: Administrator Domain: BLOOM03 Logon ID: (0x0,0x16145) Logon GUID: - User whose credentials were used: Target User Name: mary Target Domain: BLOOM03 Target Logon GUID: - Target Server Name: bb222.bb Target Server Info: bb222.bb Caller Process ID: 4 Source Network Address: - Source Port: - ======================================= Any ideas why it failed when the client and the authentication server is the same machine ? Please note that all the machines above are not in a domain. Thanks