Following up, that appears to be /var/cache/samba/messages.tdb it can't intialize. Which sits there with the same permissions on the not-working CentOS 5.4 systems as on the working Redhat 5.4 systems. Now what could create a problem for that when started from "/etc/init.d/smb start" but not from "sh /etc/init.d/smb start" or "smbd -D"? All ideas are welcome. I'm seeing with the Google that Samba has long been fragile about this stuff - but haven't found the fix yet. Whit On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 04:56:30PM -0400, Whit Blauvelt wrote: > May 24 15:29:12 xyz smbd[2674]: [2010/05/24 15:29:12, 0] lib/messages.c:message_init(132) > May 24 15:29:12 xyz smbd[2674]: ERROR: Failed to initialise messages database