smbpasswd (manpage)

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ManPage

NAME

• smbpasswd - change a user's SMB password

SYNOPSIS

• smbpasswd

1. REDIRECT Template:arg/opt
2. REDIRECT Template:fmt/arg/opt [ <-d> ] [ <-e> ] [ <-D debuglevel> ] [ <-n> ] [ <-r remote-machine> ] [ <-R name-resolve-order> ] [ <-m> ] [ <-U username[%password]> ] [ <-h> ] [ <-s> ] [ <-w pass> ] [ <-i> ] [ <-L> ] [ <username> ]

DESCRIPTION

      This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.

      The smbpasswd program has several  different  functions,  depending  on
      whether it is run by the root user or not. When run as a normal user it
      allows the user to change the password used for their SMB  sessions  on
      any machines that store SMB passwords.

      By  default  (when run with no arguments) it will attempt to change the
      current user's SMB password on the local machine. This  is  similar  to
      the  way  the  passwd(1) program works.  smbpasswd differs from how the
      passwd program works however in that it is not setuid root but works in
      a  client-server  mode and communicates with a locally running smbd(8).
      As a consequence in order for this to succeed the smbd daemon  must  be
      running on the local machine. On a UNIX machine the encrypted SMB pass-
      words are usually stored in the smbpasswd(5) file.

      When run by an ordinary user with no  options,  smbpasswd  will  prompt
      them  for  their old SMB password and then ask them for their new pass-
      word twice, to ensure that the new password  was  typed  correctly.  No
      passwords  will be echoed on the screen whilst being typed. If you have
      a blank SMB password (specified by the string "NO PASSWORD" in the smb-
      passwd  file)  then  just press the <Enter> key when asked for your old
      password.

      smbpasswd can also be used by a normal user to change their  SMB  pass-
      word on remote machines, such as Windows NT Primary Domain Controllers.
      See the (-r) and -U options below.

      When run by root, smbpasswd allows new users to be added and deleted in
      the  smbpasswd file, as well as allows changes to the attributes of the
      user in this file to be made. When run by root,  smbpasswd accesses the
      local smbpasswd file directly, thus enabling changes to be made even if
      smbd is not running.

OPTIONS

       -a     This option specifies that  the  username  following  should  be
              added  to  the local smbpasswd file, with the new password typed
              (type <Enter> for the old password). This option is  ignored  if
              the  username following already exists in the smbpasswd file and
              it is treated like a regular change password command. Note  that
              the default passdb backends require the user to already exist in
              the system password file (usually /etc/passwd), else the request
              to add the user will fail.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -x     This  option  specifies  that  the  username following should be
              deleted from the local smbpasswd file.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -d     This option specifies that the username following should be dis-
              abled in the local smbpasswd file. This is done by writing a 'D'
              flag into the account control space in the smbpasswd file.  Once
              this  is  done  all  attempts to authenticate via SMB using this
              username will fail.

              If the smbpasswd file is in the 'old' format (pre-Samba 2.0 for-
              mat)  there  is  no  space in the user's password entry to write
              this information and the command will FAIL. See smbpasswd(5) for
              details on the 'old' and new password file formats.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -e     This  option specifies that the username following should be en-
              abled in the local smbpasswd file, if the account was previously
              disabled. If the account was not disabled this option has no ef-
              fect. Once the account is enabled then the user will be able  to
              authenticate via SMB once again.

              If  the  smbpasswd  file is in the 'old' format, then  smbpasswd
              will FAIL to enable the account. See smbpasswd(5) for details on
              the 'old' and new password file formats.
              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -D debuglevel
              debuglevel is an integer from 0 to 10. The default value if this
              parameter is not specified is zero.

              The higher this value, the more detail will be logged to the log
              files about the activities of smbpasswd. At level 0, only criti-
              cal errors and serious warnings will be logged.

              Levels above 1 will generate considerable amounts of  log  data,
              and  should  only  be  used when investigating a problem. Levels
              above 3 are designed for use only  by  developers  and  generate
              HUGE amounts of log data, most of which is extremely cryptic.

       -n     This  option  specifies  that the username following should have
              their password set to null (i.e. a blank password) in the  local
              smbpasswd file. This is done by writing the string "NO PASSWORD"
              as the first part of the first password stored in the  smbpasswd
              file.

              Note  that  to  allow  users to logon to a Samba server once the
              password has been set to "NO PASSWORD" in the smbpasswd file the
              administrator  must  set the following parameter in the [global]
              section of the smb.conf file :

              null passwords = yes

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -r remote machine name
              This option allows a user to specify what machine they  wish  to
              change  their  password on. Without this parameter smbpasswd de-
              faults to the local host. The remote machine name is the NetBIOS
              name  of  the SMB/CIFS server to contact to attempt the password
              change. This name is resolved into an IP address using the stan-
              dard  name  resolution  mechanism  in  all programs of the Samba
              suite. See the -R name resolve order parameter  for  details  on
              changing this resolving mechanism.

              The  username  whose  password is changed is that of the current
              UNIX logged on user. See the -U username parameter  for  details
              on changing the password for a different username.

              Note  that  if  changing a Windows NT Domain password the remote
              machine specified must be the Primary Domain Controller for  the
              domain  (Backup Domain Controllers only have a read-only copy of
              the user account  database  and  will  not  allow  the  password
              change).

              Note  that Windows 95/98 do not have a real password database so
              it is not possible to change passwords specifying a Win95/98 ma-
              chine as remote machine target.

       -R name resolve order
              This  option allows the user of smbpasswd to determine what name
              resolution services to use when looking up the NetBIOS  name  of
              the host being connected to.

              The  options  are  :"lmhosts",  "host", "wins" and "bcast". They
              cause names to be resolved as follows:

              ·  lmhosts: Lookup an IP address in the Samba lmhosts  file.  If
                 the  line in lmhosts has no name type attached to the NetBIOS
                 name (see the lmhosts(5) for  details)  then  any  name  type
                 matches for lookup.

              ·  host: Do a standard host name to IP address resolution, using
                 the system /etc/hosts , NIS, or DNS lookups. This  method  of
                 name  resolution is operating system depended for instance on
                 IRIX or Solaris this  may  be  controlled  by  the  /etc/nss-
                 witch.conf  file).  Note that this method is only used if the
                 NetBIOS name type being queried is  the  0x20  (server)  name
                 type, otherwise it is ignored.

              ·  wins:  Query  a  name  with the IP address listed in the wins
                 server parameter. If no WINS server has been  specified  this
                 method will be ignored.

              ·  bcast:  Do  a broadcast on each of the known local interfaces
                 listed in the interfaces parameter. This is the  least  reli-
                 able of the name resolution methods as it depends on the tar-
                 get host being on a locally connected subnet.

       The default order is lmhosts, host, wins, bcast and without this param-
       eter  or  any entry in the smb.conf(5) file the name resolution methods
       will be attempted in this order.

       -m     This option tells smbpasswd that the account being changed is  a
              MACHINE account. Currently this is used when Samba is being used
              as an NT Primary Domain Controller.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -U username
              This option may only be used in conjunction with the -r  option.
              When  changing a password on a remote machine it allows the user
              to specify the user name on that machine whose password will  be
              changed.  It  is  present to allow users who have different user
              names on different systems to change these passwords.

       -h     This option prints the help string for  smbpasswd, selecting the
              correct one for running as root or as an ordinary user.

       -s     This  option  causes  smbpasswd  to  be  silent  (i.e. not issue
              prompts) and to read its old and new passwords from standard in-
              put,  rather  than  from  /dev/tty  (like  the passwd(1) program
              does). This option is to aid people  writing  scripts  to  drive
              smbpasswd

       -w password
              This parameter is only available if Samba has been compiled with
              LDAP support. The -w switch is used to specify the  password  to
              be  used with theldap admin dn. Note that the password is stored
              in the secrets.tdb and is keyed off  of  the  admin's  DN.  This
              means that if the value of ldap admin dn ever changes, the pass-
              word will need to be manually updated as well.

       -i     This option tells smbpasswd that the account being changed is an
              interdomain  trust account. Currently this is used when Samba is
              being used as an NT Primary Domain Controller. The account  con-
              tains the info about another trusted domain.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -L     Run in local mode.

       username
              This  specifies  the username for all of theroot only options to
              being used as an NT Primary Domain Controller. The account  con-
              tains the info about another trusted domain.

              This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.

       -L     Run in local mode.

       username
              This  specifies  the username for all of theroot only options to
              operate on. Only root can specify this parameter  as  only  root
              has  the  permission needed to modify attributes directly in the
              local smbpasswd file.

NOTES

Since smbpasswd works in client-server mode communicating with a local smbd for a non-root user then the smbd daemon must be running for this to work. A common problem is to add a restriction to the hosts that may access the smbd running on the local machine by specifying either allow hosts or deny hosts entry in the smb.conf(5) file and neglecting to allow "localhost" access to the smbd.

In addition, the smbpasswd command is only useful if Samba has been set up to use encrypted passwords.

VERSION

This man page is correct for version 3.0 of the Samba suite.

SEE ALSO

smbpasswd(5), samba(7).

AUTHOR

The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.

The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba 2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion to DocBook for Samba 2.2 was done by Gerald Carter. The conversion to DocBook XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy.

Edit Notes

• 2006-01-29 Transcribed from Ubuntu (hoary) manpages