Can I set up samba so it automatically allows all the local usernames and passwords?

Question

I have set up samba like this (this is the complete smb.conf):

[global]
log file = /var/log/samba/log
log level = 2
security = user

[homes]
browsable = false
read only = no
valid users = %S

I'd like to enable every user on server to access their home directories, but for some unknown reason only my 'administrator' account can do so. (I have done that with ftp before, but now smb is also needed).

When I try to smbclient -L localhost -U [user], I get NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE, except with the administrator (which is the user created during the ubuntu installation, not root).

The samba log file says NT_STATUS_NO_SUCH_USER:

[2012/04/04 20:26:02.081454,  2] smbd/reply.c:554(reply_special)
  netbios connect: name1=LOCALHOST      0x20 name2=DIALER-X       0x0
[2012/04/04 20:26:02.081733,  2] smbd/reply.c:565(reply_special)
  netbios connect: local=localhost remote=dialer-x, name type = 0
[2012/04/04 20:26:02.087200,  2] auth/auth.c:314(check_ntlm_password)
  check_ntlm_password:  Authentication for user [public] -> [public] FAILED with error NT_STATUS_NO_SUCH_USER

I suspect that I have to manually create samba users, but the man pages state that If the client has passed a username/password pair and that username/password pair is validated by the UNIX system's password programs, the connection is made as that username. To me that sounds like as long as the provided username/password is a valid login on the server, it should work.

Am I missing something totally obvious? I don't want / can't afford to manually update the samba users and passwords to match the server's.

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11.10

Answer 1

You will need to manually add your users and passwords to the samba user database using the smbpasswd command.

It's not possible to use the local user accounts since Samba and the standard password mechanism on Ubuntu both only store the hash of passwords, and not the passwords themselves. The hashes they use are incompatible, so it's not possible to import password hashes from one database into the other.

There are a couple of things you can do to automatically update passwords in both databases at the same time when a user changes their password, such as using pam_smbpass.