smbusers

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computing: Linux: Samba: smbusers

Overview

smbusers is a Samba configuration file, usually found at /etc/samba/smbusers. It is the default name for the username map file, as explained below.

Manpage

This is excerpted from the username map option documentation from the smb.conf manpage.

This option allows you to specify a file containing a mapping of usernames from the clients to the server. This can be used for several purposes. The most common is to map usernames that users use on DOS or Windows machines to those that the UNIX box uses. The other is to map multiple users to a single username so that they can more easily share files.

The map file is parsed line by line. Each line should contain a single UNIX username on the left then a '=' followed by a list of usernames on the right. The list of usernames on the right may contain names of the form @group in which case they will match any UNIX username in that group. The special client name '*' is a wildcard and matches any name. Each line of the map file may be up to 1023 characters long.

The file is processed on each line by taking the supplied username and comparing it with each username on the right hand side of the '=' signs. If the supplied name matches any of the names on the right hand side then it is replaced with the name on the left. Processing then continues with the next line.

If any line begins with a '#' or a ';' then it is ignored

If any line begins with an '!' then the processing will stop after that line if a mapping was done by the line. Otherwise mapping continues with every line being processed. Using '!' is most useful when you have a wildcard mapping line later in the file.

For example to map from the name admin or administrator to the UNIX name root you would use:

root = admin administrator

Or to map anyone in the UNIX group system to the UNIX name sys you would use:

sys = @system

You can have as many mappings as you like in a username map file.

If your system supports the NIS NETGROUP option then the netgroup database is checked before the /etc/group database for matching groups.

You can map Windows usernames that have spaces in them by using double quotes around the name. For example:

tridge = "Andrew Tridgell"

would map the windows username "Andrew Tridgell" to the unix username "tridge".

The following example would map mary and fred to the unix user sys, and map the rest to guest. Note the use of the '!' to tell Samba to stop processing if it gets a match on that line.

!sys = mary fred
guest = *

Note that the remapping is applied to all occurrences of usernames. Thus if you connect to \\server\fred and fred is remapped to mary then you will actually be connecting to \\server\mary and will need to supply a password suitable for mary not fred. The only exception to this is the username passed to the password server (if you have one). The password server will receive whatever username the client supplies without modification.

Also note that no reverse mapping is done. The main effect this has is with printing. Users who have been mapped may have trouble deleting print jobs as PrintManager under WfWg will think they don't own the print job.

Samba versions prior to 3.0.8 use this file somewhat inconsistently; see "username map" in smb.conf for details.

Example

# Unix_name = SMB_name1 SMB_name2 ...
root = administrator admin
nobody = guest pcguest smbguest
sambaguest = *