Samba question

# The following are needed to allow password changing from Windows to
# update the Linux sytsem password also.
# NOTE: Use these with 'encrypt passwords' and 'smb passwd file' above.
# NOTE2: You do NOT need these to allow workstations to change only
#        the encrypted SMB passwords. They allow the Unix password
#        to be kept in sync with the SMB password.
;  unix password sync = yes
;  passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
;  passwd chat = *New*UNIX*password* %n\n *ReType*new*UNIX*password* %n\n *passwd:*all*authentication*tokens*updated*successfully*

i dont think you need this values

and i have this values set

# Security mode. Most people will want user level security. See
# security_level.txt for details.
 security = user

# Password Level allows matching of _n_ characters of the password for
# all combinations of upper and lower case.
  password level = 8

if you don't want to create user accounts for samba's file sharing & don't want users to be auth'ed by samba, you have to set
#
security = share
#
in your smb.conf... If you have security = user (default), samba will ask login/password even if it's shared resources are  pubilc...

Yo do need "encrypt passwords = yes" and "security = user" in the global section of your Samba config and you'll need to use 'smbpasswd -a linux-user-name' for each user that will be accessing the Samba server from a windows box.

Rob >> I can send messages to other windows machines on the network using smbclient -M name, so I guess it's at least partially working.  Plus I see the Samba computer under workgroup computer in windows.

The problem is that I cant log on through windows.

I also removed those lines that you said were unnecessary.  Basically what I want is for users to be able to log on with their user names and passwords.

jlevie >> I put both encrypt passwords = yes, and security = user in the smb.conf.  I then did smbpasswd -a linux-user.  When I look in smbpasswd, I can see an entry for the user I just added also.  When I try to log on from windows with that username and password though, it doesnt let me.

After creating the user and changing smb.conf did you restart Samba? Note that restarting Samba after the change to smb.conf and before adding a user to smbpasswd won't work. The SMB password file would not exist until you used smbpasswd the first time and if it wasn't there when Samba started it won't be used.

yeah, I restarted samba after making the changes.

What windows clients are involved. I remember that win95/98 would only connect to a to a Samba server if the logon name/password to windows was the same as the Samba server. NT at least would allow a different username/password when accessing Samba. I don't know if ME or XP inherited 95/98's bad habits, but I'd expect 2k to behave like NT.

The clients are all running windows XP.  I'm pretty sure with windows XP, it is not necessary for the windows logins/passwords to be the same as the samba ones.  We've run samba on this network before with no problems (I wish I remembered how I had it set up).

Have you added any of the local users to smbpasswd ? this is a must for the login if security = share.

yes, I ran
smbpasswd -a linux-user

when I look at my test.log file (test is the user name I'm trying to log on as), There is the following:
[2004/03/02 11:58:16, 0] smbd/service.c:make_connection_snum(627)
  Can't become connected user!

Not really sure what that means.

hmm.. I found that if I change
valid users = %S
to
valid users = test

Then the user test can log on.  How can I change it so that all users in smbpasswd can log on?

thanks jlevie, that got me going.  I'm pretty sure I can config the server from here :)