On Fri, 2011-11-25 at 19:50 -0500, Alan McKay wrote:
if you're running multiple windows systems with a server and DONT have centralized authentication, you have a mess.
if you're not running windows systems, then why are you using SMB ? NFS is the native file sharing system for Unix and Linux systems.
It is a bit of an oddball arrangement. We are a scientific research lab within a hospital environment. Most people use Linux or Mac - and those who do use Windows connect to the hospital domain. We don't have any control over that domain at all - I support the researchers and am independent from central IT. When the Windows users connect to the 5.3 box via SMB they use a local username and password on the 5.3 box, not their central domain credentials.
---- I would think you would be better off using LDAP and at least you can unify the Linux/Windows/(possibly Macintosh) logins from one single authentication source (LDAP).
There are migration scripts for Linux/NIS - (openldap-servers)
If there's not too many samba users, you could copy/paste their hashed passwords from the backend (presuming that you are using smbpasswd or tdp passdb in samba).
There are some tools you can use to create/modify users and simultaneously change their passwords for both Linux/Windows logins and make them the same password.
You could also make Samba & LDAP a Windows domain controller.
I mention possibly Macintosh because it is possible to have Mac's authenticate against LDAP too but I suspect that you are using all local logins on both Mac's and Windows.
Craig