howto change samba password remotely from a windows client?

yafrank · 01-21-2005, 07:37 AM

I recently configured a samba server to share files for roughly 60 window clients. The samba security is user mood and all clients need to provide a password to access the share. It works fine except inconvinient of change password. I used to run smbpasswd on the server to change password for them but it's tedious job. What if they can alter it themselves in their window's box? The samba-howto says if you configure the server a PDC, the password change can be automatic by specifying scripts in smb.conf. The problem is that another main working service for the company won't work well in a domain environment. I googled but failed to find useful links. Is there any alternatives I can choose?
Any suggestion will be appreciated?

homey · 01-21-2005, 08:48 AM

Do you have this part in the smb.conf ?

Code:

# The following are needed to allow password changing from Windows to
# update the Linux system 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*password* %n\n *Retype*new*password* %n\n *passwd:*all*authentication*tokens*updated*successfully*

yafrank · 01-21-2005, 12:14 PM

All the file share users doesn't has login right to the smb server for security concern(/sbin/nologin shell is specified during account creation). So unix password sync is not necessary. I can use "smbpasswd -r samba_server -U account" from a linux client to remotely change smb password for an account. But all other user uses Windows. How can they change their smb password from their own machine? The comment says "# NOTE2: You do NOT need these to allow workstations to change only the encrypted SMB passwords." But how can a window client do the same as a "smbpasswd -r samba_server -U account" did from a linux box?
Thanks in advance.