Central Authentication for SAMBA
 

I've tried googling this, but I can't find anything helpful other than making samba into a PDC, which is way more than I need. On our small network here, we have a few SAMBA servers, called fserv1-fserv3. When users change their passwords, it's annoying to have to update them on all 3 file servers. I'd like to be able to maintain a central database for SAMBA authentication. The clients are a mix of Win2k, WinXP, and Linux systems. They are not running in any sort of Domain fashion, so the PDC is a bit overkill just to have SAMBA servers sync. One thought is to have one server maintain the smbpasswd file and then NFS mount the file (well, really, the directory) so all can access the database.

Also, and this one may be obvious, can a W2K/XP Client update their own password through the SMB protocol? This, combined with the above, would be an ideal solution.

Authenticating linux users through a central solution is not important, I'm the only one who logs in via SSH and similar systems, and I can handle running passwd from time to time. :) But my users would like to be able to change their samba password easily, and once.

Thoughts on this kind of problem? Anyone else come up with a solution I haven't considered?

After some more googling, I only come across thoughts of using LDAP/PDC systems for authentication, which seems to require configuring the computers into a domain.

this password issue has been posted before I think.

maybe the solution I cooked up that time is good for you as well.

windows users can change their samba passwords - given they have a unix account as well (login may be disabled).

have a look at this:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=280477