smb.conf(5)
NAME
smb.conf - The configuration file for the Samba suite
SYNOPSIS
The smb.conf file is a configuration file for the Samba suite. smb.conf
contains runtime configuration information for the Samba programs. The
smb.conf file is designed to be configured and administered by the
swat(8) program. The complete description of the file format and possi-
ble parameters held within are here for reference purposes.
FILE FORMAT
The file consists of sections and parameters. A section begins with the
name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next
section begins. Sections contain parameters of the form
name = value
The file is line-based - that is, each newline-terminated line repre-
sents either a comment, a section name or a parameter.
Section and parameter names are not case sensitive.
Only the first equals sign in a parameter is significant. Whitespace
before or after the first equals sign is discarded. Leading, trailing
and internal whitespace in section and parameter names is irrelevant.
Leading and trailing whitespace in a parameter value is discarded.
Internal whitespace within a parameter value is retained verbatim.
Any line beginning with a semicolon (``;'') or a hash (``#'') character
is ignored, as are lines containing only whitespace.
Any line ending in a ``\'' is continued on the next line in the custom-
ary UNIX fashion.
The values following the equals sign in parameters are all either a
string (no quotes needed) or a boolean, which may be given as yes/no,
0/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, but is
preserved in string values. Some items such as create modes are
numeric.
SECTION DESCRIPTIONS
Each section in the configuration file (except for the [global] sec-
tion) describes a shared resource (known as a ``share''). The section
name is the name of the shared resource and the parameters within the
section define the shares attributes.
There are three special sections, [global], [homes] and [printers],
which are described under special sections. The following notes apply
to ordinary section descriptions.
A share consists of a directory to which access is being given plus a
description of the access rights which are granted to the user of the
service. Some housekeeping options are also specifiable.
Sections are either file share services (used by the client as an
extension of their native file systems) or printable services (used by
the client to access print services on the host running the server).
Sections may be designated guest services, in which case no password is
required to access them. A specified UNIX guest account is used to
define access privileges in this case.
Sections other than guest services will require a password to access
them. The client provides the username. As older clients only provide
passwords and not usernames, you may specify a list of usernames to
check against the password using the ``user ='' option in the share
definition. For modern clients such as Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000, this
should not be necessary.
The access rights granted by the server are masked by the access rights
granted to the specified or guest UNIX user by the host system. The
server does not grant more access than the host system grants.
The following sample section defines a file space share. The user has
write access to the path /home/bar. The share is accessed via the share
name ``foo'': Example 1. [foo]
path = /home/bar
read only = read only = no
The following sample section defines a printable share. The share is
read-only, but printable. That is, the only write access permitted is
via calls to open, write to and close a spool file. The guest ok param-
eter means access will be permitted as the default guest user (speci-
fied elsewhere): Example 2. [aprinter]
path = /usr/spool/public
read only = yes
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
SPECIAL SECTIONS
The [global] section
Parameters in this section apply to the server as a whole, or are
defaults for sections that do not specifically define certain items.
See the notes under PARAMETERS for more information.
The [homes] section
If a section called [homes] is included in the configuration file, ser-
vices connecting clients to their home directories can be created on
the fly by the server.
When the connection request is made, the existing sections are scanned.
If a match is found, it is used. If no match is found, the requested
section name is treated as a username and looked up in the local pass-
word file. If the name exists and the correct password has been given,
a share is created by cloning the [homes] section.
Some modifications are then made to the newly created share:
o The share name is changed from homes to the located username.
o If no path was given, the path is set to the user's home directory.
If you decide to use a path = line in your [homes] section, you may
find it useful to use the %S macro. For example :
path = /data/pchome/%S
is useful if you have different home directories for your PCs than for
UNIX access.
This is a fast and simple way to give a large number of clients access
to their home directories with a minimum of fuss.
A similar process occurs if the requested section name is ``homes'',
except that the share name is not changed to that of the requesting
user. This method of using the [homes] section works well if different
users share a client PC.
The [homes] section can specify all the parameters a normal service
section can specify, though some make more sense than others. The fol-
lowing is a typical and suitable [homes] section: Example 3. [homes]
read only = no
An important point is that if guest access is specified in the [homes]
section, all home directories will be visible to all clients without a
password. In the very unlikely event that this is actually desirable,
it is wise to also specify read only access.
The browseable flag for auto home directories will be inherited from
the global browseable flag, not the [homes] browseable flag. This is
useful as it means setting browseable = no in the [homes] section will
hide the [homes] share but make any auto home directories visible.
The [printers] section
This section works like [homes], but for printers.
If a [printers] section occurs in the configuration file, users are
able to connect to any printer specified in the local host's printcap
file.
When a connection request is made, the existing sections are scanned.
If a match is found, it is used. If no match is found, but a [homes]
section exists, it is used as described above. Otherwise, the requested
section name is treated as a printer name and the appropriate printcap
file is scanned to see if the requested section name is a valid printer
share name. If a match is found, a new printer share is created by
cloning the [printers] section.
A few modifications are then made to the newly created share:
o The share name is set to the located printer name
o If no printer name was given, the printer name is set to the located
printer name
o If the share does not permit guest access and no username was given,
the username is set to the located printer name.
The [printers] service MUST be printable - if you specify otherwise,
the server will refuse to load the configuration file.
Typically the path specified is that of a world-writeable spool direc-
tory with the sticky bit set on it. A typical [printers] entry looks
like this: Example 4. [printers]
path = /usr/spool/public
guest ok = yes
printable = yes
All aliases given for a printer in the printcap file are legitimate
printer names as far as the server is concerned. If your printing sub-
system doesn't work like that, you will have to set up a pseudo-print-
cap. This is a file consisting of one or more lines like this:
alias|alias|alias|alias...
.fi
Each alias should be an acceptable printer name for your printing subsystem. In the [global] section, specify the new file as your printcap. The server will only recognize names found in your pseudo-printcap, which of course can contain whatever aliases you like. The same technique could be used simply to limit access to a subset of your local printers.
An alias, by the way, is defined as any component of the first entry of a printcap record. Records are separated by newlines, components (if there are more than one) are separated by vertical bar symbols (``|'').
Note
On SYSV systems which use lpstat to determine what printers are defined on the system you may be able to use``printcap name = lpstat'' to automatically obtain a list of printers. See the ``printcap name'' option for more details.
PARAMETERS
Parameters define the specific attributes of sections.
Some parameters are specific to the [global] section (e.g., security).
Some parameters are usable in all sections (e.g., create mode). All
others are permissible only in normal sections. For the purposes of the
following descriptions the [homes] and [printers] sections will be con-
sidered normal. The letter G in parentheses indicates that a parameter
is specific to the [global] section. The letter S indicates that a
parameter can be specified in a service specific section. All S parame-
ters can also be specified in the [global] section - in which case they
will define the default behavior for all services.
Parameters are arranged here in alphabetical order - this may not cre-
ate best bedfellows, but at least you can find them! Where there are
synonyms, the preferred synonym is described, others refer to the pre-
ferred synonym.
VARIABLE SUBSTITUTIONS
Many of the strings that are settable in the config file can take sub-
stitutions. For example the option ``path = /tmp/%u'' is interpreted as
``path = /tmp/john'' if the user connected with the username john.
These substitutions are mostly noted in the descriptions below, but
there are some general substitutions which apply whenever they might be
relevant. These are:
%U session username (the username that the client wanted, not nec-
essarily the same as the one they got).
%G primary group name of %U.
%h the Internet hostname that Samba is running on.
%m the NetBIOS name of the client machine (very useful).
%L the NetBIOS name of the server. This allows you to change your
config based on what the client calls you. Your server can have
a ``dual personality''.
This parameter is not available when Samba listens on port 445,
as clients no longer send this information.
%M the Internet name of the client machine.
%R the selected protocol level after protocol negotiation. It can
be one of CORE, COREPLUS, LANMAN1, LANMAN2 or NT1.
%d the process id of the current server process.
%a the architecture of the remote machine. It currently recognizes
Samba (Samba), the Linux CIFS file system (CIFSFS), OS/2, (OS2),
Windows for Workgroups (WfWg), Windows 9x/ME (Win95), Windows NT
(WinNT), Windows 2000 (Win2K), Windows XP (WinXP), and Windows
2003 (Win2K3). Anything else will be known asUNKNOWN.
%I the IP address of the client machine.
%i the local IP address to which a client connected.
%T the current date and time.
%D name of the domain or workgroup of the current user.
%$(envvar)
the value of the environment variableenvar.
The following substitutes apply only to some configuration options
(only those that are used when a connection has been established):
%S the name of the current service, if any.
%P the root directory of the current service, if any.
%u username of the current service, if any.
%g primary group name of %u.
%H the home directory of the user given by %u.
%N the name of your NIS home directory server. This is obtained
from your NIS auto.map entry. If you have not compiled Samba
with the --with-automount option, this value will be the same as
%L.
%p the path of the service's home directory, obtained from your NIS
auto.map entry. The NIS auto.map entry is split up as ``%N:%p''.
There are some quite creative things that can be done with these sub-
stitutions and other smb.conf options.
NAME MANGLING
Samba supports ``name mangling'' so that DOS and Windows clients can
use files that don't conform to the 8.3 format. It can also be set to
adjust the case of 8.3 format filenames.
There are several options that control the way mangling is performed,
and they are grouped here rather than listed separately. For the
defaults look at the output of the testparm program.
All of these options can be set separately for each service (or glob-
ally, of course).
The options are:
case sensitive = yes/no/auto
controls whether filenames are case sensitive. If they aren't,
Samba must do a filename search and match on passed names. The
default setting of auto allows clients that support case sensi-
tive filenames (Linux CIFSVFS and smbclient 3.0.5 and above cur-
rently) to tell the Samba server on a per-packet basis that they
wish to access the file system in a case-sensitive manner (to
support UNIX case sensitive semantics). No Windows or DOS system
supports case-sensitive filename so setting this option to auto
is that same as setting it to no for them. Default auto.
default case = upper/lower
controls what the default case is for new filenames. Default
lower.
preserve case = yes/no
controls whether new files are created with the case that the
client passes, or if they are forced to be the``default'' case.
Default yes.
short preserve case = yes/no
controls if new files which conform to 8.3 syntax, that is all
in upper case and of suitable length, are created upper case, or
if they are forced to be the ``default'' case. This option can
be used with ``preserve case = yes'' to permit long filenames to
retain their case, while short names are lowercased. Default
yes.
By default, Samba 3.0 has the same semantics as a Windows NT server, in
that it is case insensitive but case preserving.
NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION
There are a number of ways in which a user can connect to a service.
The server uses the following steps in determining if it will allow a
connection to a specified service. If all the steps fail, the connec-
tion request is rejected. However, if one of the steps succeeds, the
following steps are not checked.
If the service is marked ``guest only = yes'' and the server is running
with share-level security (``security = share'', steps 1 to 5 are
skipped.
1. If the client has passed a username/password pair and that user-
name/password pair is validated by the UNIX system's password pro-
grams, the connection is made as that username. This includes the
\\server\service%username method of passing a username.
2. If the client has previously registered a username with the system
and now supplies a correct password for that username, the connec-
tion is allowed.
3. The client's NetBIOS name and any previously used usernames are
checked against the supplied password. If they match, the connection
is allowed as the corresponding user.
4. If the client has previously validated a username/password pair with
the server and the client has passed the validation token, that
username is used.
5. If a ``user = '' field is given in thesmb.conf file for the service
and the client has supplied a password, and that password matches
(according to the UNIX system's password checking) with one of the
usernames from the ``user ='' field, the connection is made as the
username in the ``user ='' line. If one of the usernames in the
``user ='' list begins with a``@'', that name expands to a list of
names in the group of the same name.
6. If the service is a guest service, a connection is made as the user-
name given in the ``guest account ='' for the service, irrespective
of the supplied password.
EXPLANATION OF EACH PARAMETER
abort shutdown script (G)
This a full path name to a script called by smbd(8) that should
stop a shutdown procedure issued by the shutdown script.
If the connected user posseses the SeRemoteShutdownPrivilege,
right, this command will be run as user.
Default: abort shutdown script =
Example: abort shutdown script = /sbin/shutdown -c
acl compatibility (S)
This parameter specifies what OS ACL semantics should be compat-
ible with. Possible values are winnt for Windows NT 4,win2k for
Windows 2000 and above and auto. If you specify auto, the value
for this parameter will be based upon the version of the client.
There should be no reason to change this parameter from the
default.
Default: acl compatibility = Auto
Example: acl compatibility = win2k
add group script (G)
This is the full pathname to a script that will be runAS ROOT by
smbd(8) when a new group is requested. It will expand any %g to
the group name passed. This script is only useful for installa-
tions using the Windows NT domain administration tools. The
script is free to create a group with an arbitrary name to cir-
cumvent unix group name restrictions. In that case the script
must print the numeric gid of the created group on stdout.
No default
add machine script (G)
This is the full pathname to a script that will be run bysmbd(8)
when a machine is added to it's domain using the administrator
username and password method.
This option is only required when using sam back-ends tied to
the Unix uid method of RID calculation such as smbpasswd. This
option is only available in Samba 3.0.
Default: add machine script =
Example: add machine script = /usr/sbin/adduser -n -g machines
-c Machine -d /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %u
addprinter command (G)
With the introduction of MS-RPC based printing support for Win-
dows NT/2000 clients in Samba 2.2, The MS Add Printer Wizard
(APW) icon is now also available in the "Printers..." folder
displayed a share listing. The APW allows for printers to be add
remotely to a Samba or Windows NT/2000 print server.
For a Samba host this means that the printer must be physically
added to the underlying printing system. The add printer command
defines a script to be run which will perform the necessary
operations for adding the printer to the print system and to add
the appropriate service definition to the smb.conf file in order
that it can be shared by smbd(8).
The addprinter command is automatically invoked with the follow-
ing parameter (in order):
o printer name
o share name
o port name
o driver name
o location
o Windows 9x driver location
All parameters are filled in from the PRINTER_INFO_2 structure
sent by the Windows NT/2000 client with one exception. The "Win-
dows 9x driver location" parameter is included for backwards
compatibility only. The remaining fields in the structure are
generated from answers to the APW questions.
Once the addprinter command has been executed, smbd will reparse
the smb.conf to determine if the share defined by the APW
exists. If the sharename is still invalid, then smbd will
return an ACCESS_DENIED error to the client.
The "add printer command" program can output a single line of
text, which Samba will set as the port the new printer is con-
nected to. If this line isn't output, Samba won't reload its
printer shares.
Default: addprinter command =
Example: addprinter command = /usr/bin/addprinter
add share command (G)
Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete
shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. Theadd share com-
mand is used to define an external program or script which will
add a new service definition to smb.conf. In order to success-
fully execute the add share command, smbd requires that the
administrator be connected using a root account (i.e. uid == 0).
When executed, smbd will automatically invoke theadd share com-
mand with four parameters.
o configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.
o shareName - the name of the new share.
o pathName - path to an **existing** directory on disk.
o comment - comment string to associate with the new share.
This parameter is only used for add file shares. To add printer
shares, see the addprinter command.
Default: add share command =
Example: add share command = /usr/local/bin/addshare
add user script (G)
This is the full pathname to a script that will be run AS ROOT
by smbd(8) under special circumstances described below.
Normally, a Samba server requires that UNIX users are created
for all users accessing files on this server. For sites that use
Windows NT account databases as their primary user database cre-
ating these users and keeping the user list in sync with the
Windows NT PDC is an onerous task. This option allows smbd to
create the required UNIX usersON DEMAND when a user accesses the
Samba server.
In order to use this option, smbd(8) must NOT be set to security
= share and add user script must be set to a full pathname for a
script that will create a UNIX user given one argument of %u,
which expands into the UNIX user name to create.
When the Windows user attempts to access the Samba server, at
login (session setup in the SMB protocol) time, smbd(8) contacts
the password server and attempts to authenticate the given user
with the given password. If the authentication succeeds then
smbd attempts to find a UNIX user in the UNIX password database
to map the Windows user into. If this lookup fails, and add user
script is set then smbd will call the specified script AS ROOT,
expanding any %u argument to be the user name to create.
If this script successfully creates the user then smbd will
continue on as though the UNIX user already existed. In this
way, UNIX users are dynamically created to match existing Win-
dows NT accounts.
See also security, password server,delete user script.
Default: add user script =
Example: add user script = /usr/local/samba/bin/add_user %u
add user to group script (G)
Full path to the script that will be called when a user is added
to a group using the Windows NT domain administration tools. It
will be run by smbd(8)AS ROOT. Any %g will be replaced with the
group name and any %u will be replaced with the user name.
Note that the adduser command used in the example below does not
support the used syntax on all systems.
Default: add user to group script =
Example: add user to group script = /usr/sbin/adduser %u %g
admin users (S)
This is a list of users who will be granted administrative priv-
ileges on the share. This means that they will do all file oper-
ations as the super-user (root).
You should use this option very carefully, as any user in this
list will be able to do anything they like on the share, irre-
spective of file permissions.
This parameter will not work with the security = share in Samba
3.0. This is by design.
Default: admin users =
Example: admin users = jason
afs share (S)
This parameter controls whether special AFS features are enabled
for this share. If enabled, it assumes that the directory
exported via the path parameter is a local AFS import. The spe-
cial AFS features include the attempt to hand-craft an AFS token
if you enabled --with-fake-kaserver in configure.
Default: afs share = no
afs username map (G)
If you are using the fake kaserver AFS feature, you might want
to hand-craft the usernames you are creating tokens for. For
example this is necessary if you have users from several domain
in your AFS Protection Database. One possible scheme to code
users as DOMAIN+User as it is done by winbind with the + as a
separator.
The mapped user name must contain the cell name to log into, so
without setting this parameter there will be no token.
Default: afs username map =
Example: afs username map = %u@afs.samba.org
algorithmic rid base (G)
This determines how Samba will use its algorithmic mapping from
uids/gid to the RIDs needed to construct NT Security Identi-
fiers.
Setting this option to a larger value could be useful to sites
transitioning from WinNT and Win2k, as existing user and group
rids would otherwise clash with sytem users etc.
All UIDs and GIDs must be able to be resolved into SIDs for the
correct operation of ACLs on the server. As such the algorithmic
mapping can't be 'turned off', but pushing it 'out of the way'
should resolve the issues. Users and groups can then be assigned
'low' RIDs in arbitary-rid supporting backends.
Default: algorithmic rid base = 1000
Example: algorithmic rid base = 100000
allocation roundup size (S)
This parameter allows an administrator to tune the allocation
size reported to Windows clients. The default size of 1Mb gener-
ally results in improved Windows client performance. However,
rounding the allocation size may cause difficulties for some
applications, e.g. MS Visual Studio. If the MS Visual Studio
compiler starts to crash with an internal error, set this param-
eter to zero for this share.
The integer parameter specifies the roundup size in bytes.
Default: allocation roundup size = 1048576
Example: allocation roundup size = 0 # (to disable roundups)
allow trusted domains (G)
This option only takes effect when the security option is set to
server or domain. If it is set to no, then attempts to connect
to a resource from a domain or workgroup other than the one
which smbd is running in will fail, even if that domain is
trusted by the remote server doing the authentication.
This is useful if you only want your Samba server to serve
resources to users in the domain it is a member of. As an exam-
ple, suppose that there are two domains DOMA and DOMB. DOMB is
trusted by DOMA, which contains the Samba server. Under normal
circumstances, a user with an account in DOMB can then access
the resources of a UNIX account with the same account name on
the Samba server even if they do not have an account in DOMA.
This can make implementing a security boundary difficult.
Default: allow trusted domains = yes
announce as (G)
This specifies what type of server nmbd(8) will announce itself
as, to a network neighborhood browse list. By default this is
set to Windows NT. The valid options are : "NT Server" (which
can also be written as "NT"), "NT Workstation", "Win95" or "WfW"
meaning Windows NT Server, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 95
and Windows for Workgroups respectively. Do not change this
parameter unless you have a specific need to stop Samba appear-
ing as an NT server as this may prevent Samba servers from par-
ticipating as browser servers correctly.
Default: announce as = NT Server
Example: announce as = Win95
announce version (G)
This specifies the major and minor version numbers that nmbd
will use when announcing itself as a server. The default is 4.9.
Do not change this parameter unless you have a specific need to
set a Samba server to be a downlevel server.
Default: announce version = 4.9
Example: announce version = 2.0
auth methods (G)
This option allows the administrator to chose what authentica-
tion methods smbd will use when authenticating a user. This
option defaults to sensible values based on security. This
should be considered a developer option and used only in rare
circumstances. In the majority (if not all) of production
servers, the default setting should be adequate.
Each entry in the list attempts to authenticate the user in
turn, until the user authenticates. In practice only one method
will ever actually be able to complete the authentication.
Possible options include guest (anonymous access), sam (lookups
in local list of accounts based on netbios name or domain name),
winbind (relay authentication requests for remote users through
winbindd), ntdomain (pre-winbindd method of authentication for
remote domain users; deprecated in favour of winbind method),
trustdomain (authenticate trusted users by contacting the remote
DC directly from smbd; deprecated in favour of winbind method).
Default: auth methods =
Example: auth methods = guest sam winbind
available (S)
This parameter lets you "turn off" a service. Ifavailable = no,
then ALL attempts to connect to the service will fail. Such
failures are logged.
Default: available = yes
bind interfaces only (G)
This global parameter allows the Samba admin to limit what
interfaces on a machine will serve SMB requests. It affects file
service smbd(8) and name service nmbd(8) in a slightly different
ways.
For name service it causes nmbd to bind to ports 137 and 138 on
the interfaces listed in the interfaces parameter. nmbd also
binds to the "all addresses" interface (0.0.0.0) on ports 137
and 138 for the purposes of reading broadcast messages. If this
option is not set then nmbd will service name requests on all of
these sockets. If bind interfaces only is set then nmbd will
check the source address of any packets coming in on the broad-
cast sockets and discard any that don't match the broadcast
addresses of the interfaces in the interfaces parameter list. As
unicast packets are received on the other sockets it allowsnmbd
to refuse to serve names to machines that send packets that
arrive through any interfaces not listed in theinterfaces list.
IP Source address spoofing does defeat this simple check, how-
ever, so it must not be used seriously as a security feature for
nmbd.
For file service it causes smbd(8) to bind only to the interface
list given in the interfaces parameter. This restricts the net-
works that smbd will serve to packets coming in those inter-
faces. Note that you should not use this parameter for machines
that are serving PPP or other intermittent or non-broadcast net-
work interfaces as it will not cope with non-permanent inter-
faces.
If bind interfaces only is set then unless the network address
127.0.0.1 is added to the interfaces parameter list smbpasswd(8)
and swat(8) may not work as expected due to the reasons covered
below.
To change a users SMB password, the smbpasswd by default con-
nects to the localhost - 127.0.0.1 address as an SMB client to
issue the password change request. Ifbind interfaces only is set
then unless the network address 127.0.0.1 is added to theinter-
faces parameter list then smbpasswd will fail to connect in
it's default mode.smbpasswd can be forced to use the primary IP
interface of the local host by using its smbpasswd(8)-r remote
machine parameter, with remote machine set to the IP name of the
primary interface of the local host.
The swat status page tries to connect withsmbd and nmbd at the
address127.0.0.1 to determine if they are running. Not adding
127.0.0.1 will cause smbd and nmbd to always show "not running"
even if they really are. This can prevent swat from start-
ing/stopping/restarting smbd and nmbd.
Default: bind interfaces only = no
blocking locks (S)
This parameter controls the behavior of smbd(8) when given a
request by a client to obtain a byte range lock on a region of
an open file, and the request has a time limit associated with
it.
If this parameter is set and the lock range requested cannot be
immediately satisfied, samba will internally queue the lock
request, and periodically attempt to obtain the lock until the
timeout period expires.
If this parameter is set to no, then samba will behave as previ-
ous versions of Samba would and will fail the lock request imme-
diately if the lock range cannot be obtained.
Default: blocking locks = yes
block size (S)
This parameter controls the behavior of smbd(8) when reporting
disk free sizes. By default, this reports a disk block size of
1024 bytes.
Changing this parameter may have some effect on the efficiency
of client writes, this is not yet confirmed. This parameter was
added to allow advanced administrators to change it (usually to
a higher value) and test the effect it has on client write per-
formance without re-compiling the code. As this is an experimen-
tal option it may be removed in a future release.
Changing this option does not change the disk free reporting
size, just the block size unit reported to the client.
No default
browsable
This parameter is a synonym for browseable.
browseable (S)
This controls whether this share is seen in the list of avail-
able shares in a net view and in the browse list.
Default: browseable = yes
browse list (G)
This controls whether smbd(8) will serve a browse list to a
client doing a NetServerEnum call. Normally set to yes. You
should never need to change this.
Default: browse list = yes
casesignames
This parameter is a synonym for case sensitive.
case sensitive (S)
See the discussion in the section NAME MANGLING.
Default: case sensitive = no
change notify timeout (G)
This SMB allows a client to tell a server to "watch" a particu-
lar directory for any changes and only reply to the SMB request
when a change has occurred. Such constant scanning of a direc-
tory is expensive under UNIX, hence an smbd(8) daemon only per-
forms such a scan on each requested directory once every change
notify timeout seconds.
Default: change notify timeout = 60
Example: change notify timeout = 300 # Would change the scan
time to every 5 minutes.
change share command (G)
Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete
shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. Thechange share
command is used to define an external program or script which
will modify an existing service definition in smb.conf. In order
to successfully execute the change share command, smbd requires
that the administrator be connected using a root account (i.e.
uid == 0).
When executed, smbd will automatically invoke thechange share
command with four parameters.
o configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.
o shareName - the name of the new share.
o pathName - path to an **existing** directory on disk.
o comment - comment string to associate with the new share.
This parameter is only used modify existing file shares defini-
tions. To modify printer shares, use the "Printers..." folder as
seen when browsing the Samba host.
Default: change share command =
Example: change share command = /usr/local/bin/addshare
check password script (G)
The name of a program that can be used to check password com-
plexity. The password is sent to the program's standrad input.
The program must return 0 on good password any other value oth-
erwise. In case the password is considered weak (the program do
not return 0) the user will be notified and the password change
will fail.
Note: In the example directory there is a sample program called
crackcheck that uses cracklib to checkpassword quality
.
Default: check password script = Disabled
Example: check password script = check password script =
/usr/local/sbin/crackcheck
client lanman auth (G)
This parameter determines whether or not smbclient(8) and other
samba client tools will attempt to authenticate itself to
servers using the weaker LANMAN password hash. If disabled, only
server which support NT password hashes (e.g. Windows NT/2000,
Samba, etc... but not Windows 95/98) will be able to be con-
nected from the Samba client.
The LANMAN encrypted response is easily broken, due to it's
case-insensitive nature, and the choice of algorithm. Clients
without Windows 95/98 servers are advised to disable this
option.
Disabling this option will also disable the client plaintext
auth option
Likewise, if the client ntlmv2 auth parameter is enabled, then
only NTLMv2 logins will be attempted.
Default: client lanman auth = yes
client ntlmv2 auth (G)
This parameter determines whether or not smbclient(8) will
attempt to authenticate itself to servers using the NTLMv2
encrypted password response.
If enabled, only an NTLMv2 and LMv2 response (both much more
secure than earlier versions) will be sent. Many servers
(including NT4 < SP4, Win9x and Samba 2.2) are not compatible
with NTLMv2.
Similarly, if enabled, NTLMv1, client lanman auth and client
plaintext auth authentication will be disabled. This also dis-
ables share-level authentication.
If disabled, an NTLM response (and possibly a LANMAN response)
will be sent by the client, depending on the value of client
lanman auth.
Note that some sites (particularly those following 'best prac-
tice' security polices) only allow NTLMv2 responses, and not the
weaker LM or NTLM.
Default: client ntlmv2 auth = no
client plaintext auth (G)
Specifies whether a client should send a plaintext password if
the server does not support encrypted passwords.
Default: client plaintext auth = yes
client schannel (G)
This controls whether the client offers or even demands the use
of the netlogon schannel. client schannel = no does not offer
the schannel, client schannel = auto offers the schannel but
does not enforce it, and client schannel = yes denies access if
the server is not able to speak netlogon schannel.
Default: client schannel = auto
Example: client schannel = yes
client signing (G)
This controls whether the client offers or requires the server
it talks to to use SMB signing. Possible values are auto, manda-
tory and disabled.
When set to auto, SMB signing is offered, but not enforced. When
set to mandatory, SMB signing is required and if set to dis-
abled, SMB signing is not offered either.
Default: client signing = auto
client use spnego (G)
This variable controls whether Samba clients will try to use
Simple and Protected NEGOciation (as specified by rfc2478) with
supporting servers (including WindowsXP, Windows2000 and Samba
3.0) to agree upon an authentication mechanism. This enables
Kerberos authentication in particular.
Default: client use spnego = yes
comment (S)
This is a text field that is seen next to a share when a client
does a queries the server, either via the network neighborhood
or via net view to list what shares are available.
If you want to set the string that is displayed next to the
machine name then see the server string parameter.
Default: comment = # No comment
Example: comment = Fred's Files
config file (G)
This allows you to override the config file to use, instead of
the default (usually smb.conf). There is a chicken and egg prob-
lem here as this option is set in the config file!
For this reason, if the name of the config file has changed when
the parameters are loaded then it will reload them from the new
config file.
This option takes the usual substitutions, which can be very
useful.
If the config file doesn't exist then it won't be loaded (allow-
ing you to special case the config files of just a few clients).
No default
Example: config file = /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.%m
copy (S)
This parameter allows you to "clone" service entries. The speci-
fied service is simply duplicated under the current service's
name. Any parameters specified in the current section will over-
ride those in the section being copied.
This feature lets you set up a 'template' service and create
similar services easily. Note that the service being copied must
occur earlier in the configuration file than the service doing
the copying.
Default: copy =
Example: copy = otherservice
create mode
This parameter is a synonym for create mask.
create mask (S)
When a file is created, the necessary permissions are calculated
according to the mapping from DOS modes to UNIX permissions, and
the resulting UNIX mode is then bit-wise 'AND'ed with this
parameter. This parameter may be thought of as a bit-wise MASK
for the UNIX modes of a file. Any bit not set here will be
removed from the modes set on a file when it is created.
The default value of this parameter removes the 'group' and
'other' write and execute bits from the UNIX modes.
Following this Samba will bit-wise 'OR' the UNIX mode created
from this parameter with the value of the force create mode
parameter which is set to 000 by default.
This parameter does not affect directory modes. See the parame-
ter directory mode for details.
Note that this parameter does not apply to permissions set by
Windows NT/2000 ACL editors. If the administrator wishes to
enforce a mask on access control lists also, they need to set
the security mask.
Default: create mask = 0744
Example: create mask = 0775
csc policy (S)
This stands for client-side caching policy, and specifies how
clients capable of offline caching will cache the files in the
share. The valid values are: manual, documents, programs, dis-
able.
These values correspond to those used on Windows servers.
For example, shares containing roaming profiles can have offline
caching disabled using csc policy = disable.
Default: csc policy = manual
Example: csc policy = programs
cups options (S)
This parameter is only applicable if printing is set to cups.
Its value is a free form string of options passed directly to
the cups library.
You can pass any generic print option known to CUPS (as listed
in the CUPS "Software Users' Manual"). You can also pass any
printer specific option (as listed in "lpoptions -d printername
-l") valid for the target queue.
You should set this parameter to raw if your CUPS server
error_log file contains messages such as "Unsupported format
'application/octet-stream'" when printing from a Windows client
through Samba. It is no longer necessary to enable system wide
raw printing in /etc/cups/mime.{convs,types}.
Default: cups options = ""
Example: cups options = "raw,media=a4,job-sheets=secret,secret"
cups server (G)
This parameter is only applicable if printing is set to cups.
If set, this option overrides the ServerName option in the CUPS
client.conf. This is necessary if you have virtual samba servers
that connect to different CUPS daemons.
Default: cups server = ""
Example: cups server = MYCUPSSERVER
deadtime (G)
The value of the parameter (a decimal integer) represents the
number of minutes of inactivity before a connection is consid-
ered dead, and it is disconnected. The deadtime only takes
effect if the number of open files is zero.
This is useful to stop a server's resources being exhausted by a
large number of inactive connections.
Most clients have an auto-reconnect feature when a connection is
broken so in most cases this parameter should be transparent to
users.
Using this parameter with a timeout of a few minutes is recom-
mended for most systems.
A deadtime of zero indicates that no auto-disconnection should
be performed.
Default: deadtime = 0
Example: deadtime = 15
debug hires timestamp (G)
Sometimes the timestamps in the log messages are needed with a
resolution of higher that seconds, this boolean parameter adds
microsecond resolution to the timestamp message header when
turned on.
Note that the parameter debug timestamp must be on for this to
have an effect.
Default: debug hires timestamp = no
debug pid (G)
When using only one log file for more then one forked
smbd(8)-process there may be hard to follow which process out-
puts which message. This boolean parameter is adds the
process-id to the timestamp message headers in the logfile when
turned on.
Note that the parameter debug timestamp must be on for this to
have an effect.
Default: debug pid = no
timestamp logs
This parameter is a synonym for debug timestamp.
debug timestamp (G)
Samba debug log messages are timestamped by default. If you are
running at a high debug level these timestamps can be distract-
ing. This boolean parameter allows timestamping to be turned
off.
Default: debug timestamp = yes
debug uid (G)
Samba is sometimes run as root and sometime run as the connected
user, this boolean parameter inserts the current euid, egid, uid
and gid to the timestamp message headers in the log file if
turned on.
Note that the parameter debug timestamp must be on for this to
have an effect.
Default: debug uid = no
default case (S)
See the section on NAME MANGLING. Also note the short preserve
case parameter.
Default: default case = lower
default devmode (S)
This parameter is only applicable to printable services. When
smbd is serving Printer Drivers to Windows NT/2k/XP clients,
each printer on the Samba server has a Device Mode which defines
things such as paper size and orientation and duplex settings.
The device mode can only correctly be generated by the printer
driver itself (which can only be executed on a Win32 platform).
Because smbd is unable to execute the driver code to generate
the device mode, the default behavior is to set this field to
NULL.
Most problems with serving printer drivers to Windows NT/2k/XP
clients can be traced to a problem with the generated device
mode. Certain drivers will do things such as crashing the
client's Explorer.exe with a NULL devmode. However, other
printer drivers can cause the client's spooler service
(spoolsv.exe) to die if the devmode was not created by the
driver itself (i.e. smbd generates a default devmode).
This parameter should be used with care and tested with the
printer driver in question. It is better to leave the device
mode to NULL and let the Windows client set the correct values.
Because drivers do not do this all the time, setting default
devmode = yes will instruct smbd to generate a default one.
For more information on Windows NT/2k printing and Device Modes,
see the MSDN documentation.
Default: default devmode = no
default
This parameter is a synonym for default service.
default service (G)
This parameter specifies the name of a service which will be
connected to if the service actually requested cannot be found.
Note that the square brackets are NOT given in the parameter
value (see example below).
There is no default value for this parameter. If this parameter
is not given, attempting to connect to a nonexistent service
results in an error.
Typically the default service would be a guest ok, read-only
service.
Also note that the apparent service name will be changed to
equal that of the requested service, this is very useful as it
allows you to use macros like %S to make a wildcard service.
Note also that any "_" characters in the name of the service
used in the default service will get mapped to a "/". This
allows for interesting things.
Default: default service =
Example: default service = pub
defer sharing violations (G)
Windows allows specifying how a file will be shared with other
processes when it is opened. Sharing violations occur when a
file is opened by a different process using options that violate
the share settings specified by other processes. This parameter
causes smbd to act as a Windows server does, and defer returning
a "sharing violation" error message for up to one second, allow-
ing the client to close the file causing the violation in the
meantime.
Unix by default does not have this behaviour.
There should be no reason to turn off this parameter, as it is
designed to enable Samba to more correctly emulate Windows.
Default: defer sharing violations = True
delete group script (G)
This is the full pathname to a script that will be run AS ROOT
smbd(8) when a group is requested to be deleted. It will expand
any %g to the group name passed. This script is only useful for
installations using the Windows NT domain administration tools.
Default: delete group script =
deleteprinter command (G)
With the introduction of MS-RPC based printer support for Win-
dows NT/2000 clients in Samba 2.2, it is now possible to delete
printer at run time by issuing the DeletePrinter() RPC call.
For a Samba host this means that the printer must be physically
deleted from underlying printing system. The deleteprinter com-
mand defines a script to be run which will perform the necessary
operations for removing the printer from the print system and
from smb.conf.
The deleteprinter command is automatically called with only one
parameter: "printer name".
Once the deleteprinter command has been executed, smbd will
reparse the smb.conf to associated printer no longer exists. If
the sharename is still valid, then smbd will return an
ACCESS_DENIED error to the client.
Default: deleteprinter command =
Example: deleteprinter command = /usr/bin/removeprinter
delete readonly (S)
This parameter allows readonly files to be deleted. This is not
normal DOS semantics, but is allowed by UNIX.
This option may be useful for running applications such as rcs,
where UNIX file ownership prevents changing file permissions,
and DOS semantics prevent deletion of a read only file.
Default: delete readonly = no
delete share command (G)
Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete
shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. Thedelete share
command is used to define an external program or script which
will remove an existing service definition from smb.conf. In
order to successfully execute the delete share command, smbd
requires that the administrator be connected using a root
account (i.e. uid == 0).
When executed, smbd will automatically invoke thedelete share
command with two parameters.
o configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.
o shareName - the name of the existing service.
This parameter is only used to remove file shares. To delete
printer shares, see the deleteprinter command.
Default: delete share command =
Example: delete share command = /usr/local/bin/delshare
delete user from group script (G)
Full path to the script that will be called when a user is
removed from a group using the Windows NT domain administration
tools. It will be run by smbd(8) AS ROOT. Any %g will be
replaced with the group name and any %u will be replaced with
the user name.
Default: delete user from group script =
Example: delete user from group script = /usr/sbin/deluser %u %g
delete user script (G)
This is the full pathname to a script that will be run by
smbd(8) when managing users with remote RPC (NT) tools.
This script is called when a remote client removes a user from
the server, normally using 'User Manager for Domains' orrpc-
client.
This script should delete the given UNIX username.
Default: delete user script =
Example: delete user script = /usr/local/samba/bin/del_user %u
delete veto files (S)
This option is used when Samba is attempting to delete a direc-
tory that contains one or more vetoed directories (see the veto
files option). If this option is set to no (the default) then if
a vetoed directory contains any non-vetoed files or directories
then the directory delete will fail. This is usually what you
want.
If this option is set to yes, then Samba will attempt to recur-
sively delete any files and directories within the vetoed direc-
tory. This can be useful for integration with file serving sys-
tems such as NetAtalk which create meta-files within directories
you might normally veto DOS/Windows users from seeing (e.g.
.AppleDouble)
Setting delete veto files = yes allows these directories to be
transparently deleted when the parent directory is deleted (so
long as the user has permissions to do so).
Default: delete veto files = no
dfree command (G)
The dfree command setting should only be used on systems where a
problem occurs with the internal disk space calculations. This
has been known to happen with Ultrix, but may occur with other
operating systems. The symptom that was seen was an error of
"Abort Retry Ignore" at the end of each directory listing.
This setting allows the replacement of the internal routines to
calculate the total disk space and amount available with an
external routine. The example below gives a possible script that
might fulfill this function.
The external program will be passed a single parameter indicat-
ing a directory in the filesystem being queried. This will typi-
cally consist of the string ./. The script should return two
integers in ASCII. The first should be the total disk space in
blocks, and the second should be the number of available blocks.
An optional third return value can give the block size in bytes.
The default blocksize is 1024 bytes.
Note: Your script should NOT be setuid or setgid and should be
owned by (and writeable only by) root!
Where the script dfree (which must be made executable) could be:
#!/bin/sh
df $1 | tail -1 | awk '{print $2" "$4}'
or perhaps (on Sys V based systems):
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/df -k $1 | tail -1 | awk '{print $3" "$5}'
Note that you may have to replace the command names with full
path names on some systems.
Default: dfree command = # By default internal routines for
determining the disk capacity and remaining space will be used.
Example: dfree command = /usr/local/samba/bin/dfree
directory mode
This parameter is a synonym for directory mask.
directory mask (S)
This parameter is the octal modes which are used when converting
DOS modes to UNIX modes when creating UNIX directories.
When a directory is created, the necessary permissions are cal-
culated according to the mapping from DOS modes to UNIX permis-
sions, and the resulting UNIX mode is then bit-wise 'AND'ed with
this parameter. This parameter may be thought of as a bit-wise
MASK for the UNIX modes of a directory. Any bit not set here
will be removed from the modes set on a directory when it is
created.
The default value of this parameter removes the 'group' and
'other' write bits from the UNIX mode, allowing only the user
who owns the directory to modify it.
Following this Samba will bit-wise 'OR' the UNIX mode created
from this parameter with the value of the force directory mode
parameter. This parameter is set to 000 by default (i.e. no
extra mode bits are added).
Note that this parameter does not apply to permissions set by
Windows NT/2000 ACL editors. If the administrator wishes to
enforce a mask on access control lists also, they need to set
the directory security mask.
Default: directory mask = 0755
Example: directory mask = 0775
directory security mask (S)
This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modi-
fied when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permis-
sion on a directory using the native NT security dialog box.
This parameter is applied as a mask (AND'ed with) to the changed
permission bits, thus preventing any bits not in this mask from
being modified. Essentially, zero bits in this mask may be
treated as a set of bits the user is not allowed to change.
If not set explicitly this parameter is set to 0777 meaning a
user is allowed to modify all the user/group/world permissions
on a directory.
Note that users who can access the Samba server through other
means can easily bypass this restriction, so it is primarily
useful for standalone "appliance" systems. Administrators of
most normal systems will probably want to leave it as the
default of 0777.
Default: directory security mask = 0777
Example: directory security mask = 0700
disable netbios (G)
Enabling this parameter will disable netbios support in Samba.
Netbios is the only available form of browsing in all windows
versions except for 2000 and XP.
Note
Clients that only support netbios won't be able to see your
samba server when netbios support is disabled.
Default: disable netbios = no
disable spoolss (G)
Enabling this parameter will disable Samba's support for the
SPOOLSS set of MS-RPC's and will yield identical behavior as
Samba 2.0.x. Windows NT/2000 clients will downgrade to using
Lanman style printing commands. Windows 9x/ME will be uneffected
by the parameter. However, this will also disable the ability to
upload printer drivers to a Samba server via the Windows NT Add
Printer Wizard or by using the NT printer properties dialog win-
dow. It will also disable the capability of Windows NT/2000
clients to download print drivers from the Samba host upon
demand. Be very careful about enabling this parameter.
Default: disable spoolss = no
display charset (G)
Specifies the charset that samba will use to print messages to
stdout and stderr and SWAT will use. Should generally be the
same as the unix charset.
Default: display charset = ASCII
Example: display charset = UTF8
dns proxy (G)
Specifies that nmbd(8) when acting as a WINS server and finding
that a NetBIOS name has not been registered, should treat the
NetBIOS name word-for-word as a DNS name and do a lookup with
the DNS server for that name on behalf of the name-querying
client.
Note that the maximum length for a NetBIOS name is 15 charac-
ters, so the DNS name (or DNS alias) can likewise only be 15
characters, maximum.
nmbd spawns a second copy of itself to do the DNS name lookup
requests, as doing a name lookup is a blocking action.
Default: dns proxy = yes
domain logons (G)
If set to yes, the Samba server will serve Windows 95/98 Domain
logons for the workgroup it is in. Samba 2.2 has limited capa-
bility to act as a domain controller for Windows NT 4 Domains.
For more details on setting up this feature see the PDC chapter
of the Samba HOWTO Collection.
Default: domain logons = no
domain master (G)
Tell smbd(8) to enable WAN-wide browse list collation. Setting
this option causes nmbd to claim a special domain specific Net-
BIOS name that identifies it as a domain master browser for its
given workgroup. Local master browsers in the same workgroup on
broadcast-isolated subnets will give this nmbd their local
browse lists, and then ask smbd(8) for a complete copy of the
browse list for the whole wide area network. Browser clients
will then contact their local master browser, and will receive
the domain-wide browse list, instead of just the list for their
broadcast-isolated subnet.
Note that Windows NT Primary Domain Controllers expect to be
able to claim this workgroup specific special NetBIOS name that
identifies them as domain master browsers for that workgroup by
default (i.e. there is no way to prevent a Windows NT PDC from
attempting to do this). This means that if this parameter is set
and nmbd claims the special name for a workgroup before a Win-
dows NT PDC is able to do so then cross subnet browsing will
behave strangely and may fail.
If domain logons = yes, then the default behavior is to enable
the domain master parameter. If domain logons is not enabled
(the default setting), then neither will domain master be
enabled by default.
Default: domain master = auto
dont descend (S)
There are certain directories on some systems (e.g., the /proc
tree under Linux) that are either not of interest to clients or
are infinitely deep (recursive). This parameter allows you to
specify a comma-delimited list of directories that the server
should always show as empty.
Note that Samba can be very fussy about the exact format of the
"dont descend" entries. For example you may need ./proc instead
of just /proc. Experimentation is the best policy :-)
Default: dont descend =
Example: dont descend = /proc,/dev
dos charset (G)
DOS SMB clients assume the server has the same charset as they
do. This option specifies which charset Samba should talk to DOS
clients.
The default depends on which charsets you have installed. Samba
tries to use charset 850 but falls back to ASCII in case it is
not available. Run testparm(1) to check the default on your sys-
tem.
No default
dos filemode (S)
The default behavior in Samba is to provide UNIX-like behavior
where only the owner of a file/directory is able to change the
permissions on it. However, this behavior is often confusing to
DOS/Windows users. Enabling this parameter allows a user who has
write access to the file (by whatever means) to modify the per-
missions on it. Note that a user belonging to the group owning
the file will not be allowed to change permissions if the group
is only granted read access. Ownership of the file/directory is
not changed, only the permissions are modified.
Default: dos filemode = no
dos filetime resolution (S)
Under the DOS and Windows FAT filesystem, the finest granularity
on time resolution is two seconds. Setting this parameter for a
share causes Samba to round the reported time down to the near-
est two second boundary when a query call that requires one sec-
ond resolution is made to smbd(8).
This option is mainly used as a compatibility option for Visual
C++ when used against Samba shares. If oplocks are enabled on a
share, Visual C++ uses two different time reading calls to check
if a file has changed since it was last read. One of these calls
uses a one-second granularity, the other uses a two second gran-
ularity. As the two second call rounds any odd second down, then
if the file has a timestamp of an odd number of seconds then the
two timestamps will not match and Visual C++ will keep reporting
the file has changed. Setting this option causes the two time-
stamps to match, and Visual C++ is happy.
Default: dos filetime resolution = no
dos filetimes (S)
Under DOS and Windows, if a user can write to a file they can
change the timestamp on it. Under POSIX semantics, only the
owner of the file or root may change the timestamp. By default,
Samba runs with POSIX semantics and refuses to change the time-
stamp on a file if the user smbd is acting on behalf of is not
the file owner. Setting this option to yes allows DOS semantics
and smbd(8) will change the file timestamp as DOS requires.
Default: dos filetimes = no
ea support (S)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will allow
clients to attempt to store OS/2 style Extended attributes on a
share. In order to enable this parameter the underlying filesys-
tem exported by the share must support extended attributes (such
as provided on XFS and EXT3 on Linux, with the correct kernel
patches). On Linux the filesystem must have been mounted with
the mount option user_xattr in order for extended attributes to
work, also extended attributes must be compiled into the Linux
kernel.
Default: ea support = no
enable privileges (G)
This parameter controls whether or not smbd will honor privi-
leges assigned to specific SIDs via either net rpc rights or one
of the Windows user and group manager tools. This parameter is
disabled by default to prevent members of the Domain Admins
group from being able to assign privileges to users or groups
which can then result in certain smbd operations running as root
that would normally run under the context of the connected user.
An example of how privileges can be used is to assign the right
to join clients to a Samba controlled domain without providing
root access to the server via smbd.
Please read the extended description provided in the Samba docu-
mentation before enabling this option.
Default: enable privileges = no
enable rid algorithm (G)
This option is used to control whether or not smbd in Samba 3.0
should fallback to the algorithm used by Samba 2.2 to generate
user and group RIDs. The longterm development goal is to remove
the algorithmic mappings of RIDs altogether, but this has proved
to be difficult. This parameter is mainly provided so that
developers can turn the algorithm on and off and see what
breaks. This parameter should not be disabled by non-developers
because certain features in Samba will fail to work without it.
Default: enable rid algorithm = yes
encrypt passwords (G)
This boolean controls whether encrypted passwords will be nego-
tiated with the client. Note that Windows NT 4.0 SP3 and above
and also Windows 98 will by default expect encrypted passwords
unless a registry entry is changed. To use encrypted passwords
in Samba see the chapter "User Database" in the Samba HOWTO Col-
lection.
MS Windows clients that expect Microsoft encrypted passwords and
that do not have plain text password support enabled will be
able to connect only to a Samba server that has encypted pass-
word support enabled and for which the user accounts have a
valid encrypted password. Refer to the smbpasswd command man
page for information regarding the creation of encrypted pass-
words for user accounts.
The use of plain text passwords is NOT advised as support for
this feature is no longer maintained in Microsoft Windows prod-
ucts. If you want to use plain text passwords you must set this
parameter to no.
In order for encrypted passwords to work correctly smbd(8) must
either have access to a local smbpasswd(5) file (see the smb-
passwd(8) program for information on how to set up and maintain
this file), or set the security = [server|domain|ads] parameter
which causes smbd to authenticate against another server.
Default: encrypt passwords = yes
enhanced browsing (G)
This option enables a couple of enhancements to cross-subnet
browse propagation that have been added in Samba but which are
not standard in Microsoft implementations.
The first enhancement to browse propagation consists of a regu-
lar wildcard query to a Samba WINS server for all Domain Master
Browsers, followed by a browse synchronization with each of the
returned DMBs. The second enhancement consists of a regular ran-
domised browse synchronization with all currently known DMBs.
You may wish to disable this option if you have a problem with
empty workgroups not disappearing from browse lists. Due to the
restrictions of the browse protocols these enhancements can
cause a empty workgroup to stay around forever which can be
annoying.
In general you should leave this option enabled as it makes
cross-subnet browse propagation much more reliable.
Default: enhanced browsing = yes
enumports command (G)
The concept of a "port" is fairly foreign to UNIX hosts. Under
Windows NT/2000 print servers, a port is associated with a port
monitor and generally takes the form of a local port (i.e.
LPT1:, COM1:, FILE:) or a remote port (i.e. LPD Port Monitor,
etc...). By default, Samba has only one port defined--"Samba
Printer Port". Under Windows NT/2000, all printers must have a
valid port name. If you wish to have a list of ports displayed
(smbd does not use a port name for anything) other than the
default "Samba Printer Port", you can define enumports command
to point to a program which should generate a list of ports, one
per line, to standard output. This listing will then be used in
response to the level 1 and 2 EnumPorts() RPC.
Default: enumports command =
Example: enumports command = /usr/bin/listports
fake directory create times (S)
NTFS and Windows VFAT file systems keep a create time for all
files and directories. This is not the same as the ctime - sta-
tus change time - that Unix keeps, so Samba by default reports
the earliest of the various times Unix does keep. Setting this
parameter for a share causes Samba to always report midnight
1-1-1980 as the create time for directories.
This option is mainly used as a compatibility option for Visual
C++ when used against Samba shares. Visual C++ generated make-
files have the object directory as a dependency for each object
file, and a make rule to create the directory. Also, when NMAKE
compares timestamps it uses the creation time when examining a
directory. Thus the object directory will be created if it does
not exist, but once it does exist it will always have an earlier
timestamp than the object files it contains.
However, Unix time semantics mean that the create time reported
by Samba will be updated whenever a file is created or or
deleted in the directory. NMAKE finds all object files in the
object directory. The timestamp of the last one built is then
compared to the timestamp of the object directory. If the direc-
tory's timestamp if newer, then all object files will be
rebuilt. Enabling this option ensures directories always predate
their contents and an NMAKE build will proceed as expected.
Default: fake directory create times = no
fake oplocks (S)
Oplocks are the way that SMB clients get permission from a
server to locally cache file operations. If a server grants an
oplock (opportunistic lock) then the client is free to assume
that it is the only one accessing the file and it will aggres-
sively cache file data. With some oplock types the client may
even cache file open/close operations. This can give enormous
performance benefits.
When you set fake oplocks = yes, smbd(8) will always grant
oplock requests no matter how many clients are using the file.
It is generally much better to use the real oplocks support
rather than this parameter.
If you enable this option on all read-only shares or shares that
you know will only be accessed from one client at a time such as
physically read-only media like CDROMs, you will see a big per-
formance improvement on many operations. If you enable this
option on shares where multiple clients may be accessing the
files read-write at the same time you can get data corruption.
Use this option carefully!
Default: fake oplocks = no
follow symlinks (S)
This parameter allows the Samba administrator to stop
smbd(8)from following symbolic links in a particular share. Set-
ting this parameter to no prevents any file or directory that is
a symbolic link from being followed (the user will get an
error). This option is very useful to stop users from adding a
symbolic link to /etc/passwd in their home directory for
instance. However it will slow filename lookups down slightly.
This option is enabled (i.e. smbd will follow symbolic links) by
default.
Default: follow symlinks = yes
force create mode (S)
This parameter specifies a set of UNIX mode bit permissions that
will always be set on a file created by Samba. This is done by
bitwise 'OR'ing these bits onto the mode bits of a file that is
being created or having its permissions changed. The default for
this parameter is (in octal) 000. The modes in this parameter
are bitwise 'OR'ed onto the file mode after the mask set in the
create mask parameter is applied.
The example below would force all created files to have read and
execute permissions set for 'group' and 'other' as well as the
read/write/execute bits set for the 'user'.
Default: force create mode = 000
Example: force create mode = 0755
force directory mode (S)
This parameter specifies a set of UNIX mode bit permissions that
will always be set on a directory created by Samba. This is done
by bitwise 'OR'ing these bits onto the mode bits of a directory
that is being created. The default for this parameter is (in
octal) 0000 which will not add any extra permission bits to a
created directory. This operation is done after the mode mask in
the parameter directory mask is applied.
The example below would force all created directories to have
read and execute permissions set for 'group' and 'other' as well
as the read/write/execute bits set for the 'user'.
Default: force directory mode = 000
Example: force directory mode = 0755
force directory security mode (S)
This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modi-
fied when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permis-
sion on a directory using the native NT security dialog box.
This parameter is applied as a mask (OR'ed with) to the changed
permission bits, thus forcing any bits in this mask that the
user may have modified to be on. Essentially, one bits in this
mask may be treated as a set of bits that, when modifying secu-
rity on a directory, the user has always set to be 'on'.
If not set explicitly this parameter is 000, which allows a user
to modify all the user/group/world permissions on a directory
without restrictions.
Note
Users who can access the Samba server through other means can
easily bypass this restriction, so it is primarily useful for
standalone "appliance" systems. Administrators of most normal
systems will probably want to leave it set as 0000.
Default: force directory security mode = 0
Example: force directory security mode = 700
group This parameter is a synonym for force group.
force group (S)
This specifies a UNIX group name that will be assigned as the
default primary group for all users connecting to this service.
This is useful for sharing files by ensuring that all access to
files on service will use the named group for their permissions
checking. Thus, by assigning permissions for this group to the
files and directories within this service the Samba administra-
tor can restrict or allow sharing of these files.
In Samba 2.0.5 and above this parameter has extended functional-
ity in the following way. If the group name listed here has a
'+' character prepended to it then the current user accessing
the share only has the primary group default assigned to this
group if they are already assigned as a member of that group.
This allows an administrator to decide that only users who are
already in a particular group will create files with group own-
ership set to that group. This gives a finer granularity of own-
ership assignment. For example, the setting force group = +sys
means that only users who are already in group sys will have
their default primary group assigned to sys when accessing this
Samba share. All other users will retain their ordinary primary
group.
If the force user parameter is also set the group specified in
force group will override the primary group set in force user.
Default: force group =
Example: force group = agroup
force printername (S)
When printing from Windows NT (or later), each printer in
smb.conf has two associated names which can be used by the
client. The first is the sharename (or shortname) defined in
smb.conf. This is the only printername available for use by Win-
dows 9x clients. The second name associated with a printer can
be seen when browsing to the "Printers" (or "Printers and
Faxes") folder on the Samba server. This is referred to simply
as the printername (not to be confused with the printer name
option).
When assigning a new driver to a printer on a remote Windows
compatible print server such as Samba, the Windows client will
rename the printer to match the driver name just uploaded. This
can result in confusion for users when multiple printers are
bound to the same driver. To prevent Samba from allowing the
printer's printername to differ from the sharename defined in
smb.conf, set force printername = yes.
Be aware that enabling this parameter may affect migrating
printers from a Windows server to Samba since Windows has no way
to force the sharename and printername to match.
It is recommended that this parameter's value not be changed
once the printer is in use by clients as this could cause a user
not be able to delete printer connections from their local
Printers folder.
Default: force printername = no
force security mode (S)
This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modi-
fied when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permis-
sion on a file using the native NT security dialog box.
This parameter is applied as a mask (OR'ed with) to the changed
permission bits, thus forcing any bits in this mask that the
user may have modified to be on. Essentially, one bits in this
mask may be treated as a set of bits that, when modifying secu-
rity on a file, the user has always set to be 'on'.
If not set explicitly this parameter is set to 0, and allows a
user to modify all the user/group/world permissions on a file,
with no restrictions.
Note that users who can access the Samba server through other
means can easily bypass this restriction, so it is primarily
useful for standalone "appliance" systems. Administrators of
most normal systems will probably want to leave this set to
0000.
Default: force security mode = 0
Example: force security mode = 700
force unknown acl user (S)
If this parameter is set, a Windows NT ACL that contains an
unknown SID (security descriptor, or representation of a user or
group id) as the owner or group owner of the file will be
silently mapped into the current UNIX uid or gid of the cur-
rently connected user.
This is designed to allow Windows NT clients to copy files and
folders containing ACLs that were created locally on the client
machine and contain users local to that machine only (no domain
users) to be copied to a Samba server (usually with XCOPY /O)
and have the unknown userid and groupid of the file owner map to
the current connected user. This can only be fixed correctly
when winbindd allows arbitrary mapping from any Windows NT SID
to a UNIX uid or gid.
Try using this parameter when XCOPY /O gives an ACCESS_DENIED
error.
Default: force unknown acl user = no
force user (S)
This specifies a UNIX user name that will be assigned as the
default user for all users connecting to this service. This is
useful for sharing files. You should also use it carefully as
using it incorrectly can cause security problems.
This user name only gets used once a connection is established.
Thus clients still need to connect as a valid user and supply a
valid password. Once connected, all file operations will be per-
formed as the "forced user", no matter what username the client
connected as. This can be very useful.
In Samba 2.0.5 and above this parameter also causes the primary
group of the forced user to be used as the primary group for all
file activity. Prior to 2.0.5 the primary group was left as the
primary group of the connecting user (this was a bug).
Default: force user =
Example: force user = auser
fstype (S)
This parameter allows the administrator to configure the string
that specifies the type of filesystem a share is using that is
reported by smbd(8) when a client queries the filesystem type
for a share. The default type is NTFS for compatibility with
Windows NT but this can be changed to other strings such as
Samba or FAT if required.
Default: fstype = NTFS
Example: fstype = Samba
get quota command (G)
The get quota command should only be used whenever there is no
operating system API available from the OS that samba can use.
This option is only available with ./configure --with-sys-quo-
tas. Or on linux when ./configure --with-quotas was used and a
working quota api was found in the system.
This parameter should specify the path to a script that queries
the quota information for the specified user/group for the par-
tition that the specified directory is on.
Such a script should take 3 arguments:
o directory
o type of query
o uid of user or gid of group
The type of query can be one of :
o 1 - user quotas
o 2 - user default quotas (uid = -1)
o 3 - group quotas
o 4 - group default quotas (gid = -1)
This script should print one line as output with spaces between
the arguments. The arguments are:
o Arg 1 - quota flags (0 = no quotas, 1 = quotas enabled, 2 =
quotas enabled and enforced)
o Arg 2 - number of currently used blocks
o Arg 3 - the softlimit number of blocks
o Arg 4 - the hardlimit number of blocks
o Arg 5 - currently used number of inodes
o Arg 6 - the softlimit number of inodes
o Arg 7 - the hardlimit number of inodes
o Arg 8(optional) - the number of bytes in a block(default is
1024)
Default: get quota command =
Example: get quota command = /usr/local/sbin/query_quota
getwd cache (G)
This is a tuning option. When this is enabled a caching algo-
rithm will be used to reduce the time taken for getwd() calls.
This can have a significant impact on performance, especially
when the wide links parameter is set to no.
Default: getwd cache = yes
guest account (G)
This is a username which will be used for access to services
which are specified as guest ok (see below). Whatever privi-
leges this user has will be available to any client connecting
to the guest service. This user must exist in the password file,
but does not require a valid login. The user account "ftp" is
often a good choice for this parameter.
On some systems the default guest account "nobody" may not be
able to print. Use another account in this case. You should test
this by trying to log in as your guest user (perhaps by using
the su - command) and trying to print using the system print
command such as lpr(1) or lp(1).
This parameter does not accept % macros, because many parts of
the system require this value to be constant for correct opera-
tion.
Default: guest account = nobody # default can be changed at com-
pile-time
Example: guest account = ftp
public This parameter is a synonym for guest ok.
guest ok (S)
If this parameter is yes for a service, then no password is
required to connect to the service. Privileges will be those of
the guest account.
This paramater nullifies the benifits of setting restrict anony-
mous = 2
See the section below on security for more information about
this option.
Default: guest ok = no
only guest
This parameter is a synonym for guest only.
guest only (S)
If this parameter is yes for a service, then only guest connec-
tions to the service are permitted. This parameter will have no
effect if guest ok is not set for the service.
See the section below on security for more information about
this option.
Default: guest only = no
hide dot files (S)
This is a boolean parameter that controls whether files starting
with a dot appear as hidden files.
Default: hide dot files = yes
hide files (S)
This is a list of files or directories that are not visible but
are accessible. The DOS 'hidden' attribute is applied to any
files or directories that match.
Each entry in the list must be separated by a '/', which allows
spaces to be included in the entry. '*' and '?' can be used to
specify multiple files or directories as in DOS wildcards.
Each entry must be a Unix path, not a DOS path and must not
include the Unix directory separator '/'.
Note that the case sensitivity option is applicable in hiding
files.
Setting this parameter will affect the performance of Samba, as
it will be forced to check all files and directories for a match
as they are scanned.
Default: hide files = # no file are hidden
Example: hide files = /.*/DesktopFolderDB/Trash-
For%m/resource.frk/ # The above example is based on files that
the Macintosh SMB client (DAVE) available from Thursby creates
for internal use, and also still hides all files beginning with
a dot.
hide special files (S)
This parameter prevents clients from seeing special files such
as sockets, devices and fifo's in directory listings.
Default: hide special files = no
hide unreadable (S)
This parameter prevents clients from seeing the existance of
files that cannot be read. Defaults to off.
Default: hide unreadable = no
hide unwriteable files (S)
This parameter prevents clients from seeing the existance of
files that cannot be written to. Defaults to off. Note that
unwriteable directories are shown as usual.
Default: hide unwriteable files = no
homedir map (G)
Ifnis homedir is yes, and smbd(8) is also acting as a Win95/98
logon server then this parameter specifies the NIS (or YP) map
from which the server for the user's home directory should be
extracted. At present, only the Sun auto.home map format is
understood. The form of the map is:
username server:/some/file/system
and the program will extract the servername from before the
first ':'. There should probably be a better parsing system that
copes with different map formats and also Amd (another auto-
mounter) maps.
Note
A working NIS client is required on the system for this option
to work.
Default: homedir map =
Example: homedir map = amd.homedir
host msdfs (G)
If set to yes, Samba will act as a Dfs server, and allow
Dfs-aware clients to browse Dfs trees hosted on the server.
See also the msdfs root share level parameter. For more infor-
mation on setting up a Dfs tree on Samba, refer to ???.
Default: host msdfs = no
hostname lookups (G)
Specifies whether samba should use (expensive) hostname lookups
or use the ip addresses instead. An example place where hostname
lookups are currently used is when checking the hosts deny and
hosts allow.
Default: hostname lookups = no
Example: hostname lookups = yes
allow hosts
This parameter is a synonym for hosts allow.
hosts allow (S)
A synonym for this parameter is allow hosts.
This parameter is a comma, space, or tab delimited set of hosts
which are permitted to access a service.
If specified in the [global] section then it will apply to all
services, regardless of whether the individual service has a
different setting.
You can specify the hosts by name or IP number. For example, you
could restrict access to only the hosts on a Class C subnet with
something like allow hosts = 150.203.5. . The full syntax of the
list is described in the man page hosts_access(5). Note that
this man page may not be present on your system, so a brief
description will be given here also.
Note that the localhost address 127.0.0.1 will always be allowed
access unless specifically denied by a hosts deny option.
You can also specify hosts by network/netmask pairs and by net-
group names if your system supports netgroups. The EXCEPT key-
word can also be used to limit a wildcard list. The following
examples may provide some help:
Example 1: allow all IPs in 150.203.*.*; except one
hosts allow = 150.203. EXCEPT 150.203.6.66
Example 2: allow hosts that match the given network/netmask
hosts allow = 150.203.15.0/255.255.255.0
Example 3: allow a couple of hosts
hosts allow = lapland, arvidsjaur
Example 4: allow only hosts in NIS netgroup "foonet", but deny
access from one particular host
hosts allow = @foonet
hosts deny = pirate
Note
Note that access still requires suitable user-level passwords.
See testparm(1) for a way of testing your host access to see if it does
what you expect.
Default: hosts allow = # none (i.e., all hosts permitted access)
Example: hosts allow = 150.203.5. myhost.mynet.edu.au
deny hosts
This parameter is a synonym for hosts deny.
hosts deny (S)
The opposite of hosts allow - hosts listed here are NOT permit-
ted access to services unless the specific services have their
own lists to override this one. Where the lists conflict, the
allow list takes precedence.
Default: hosts deny = # none (i.e., no hosts specifically
excluded)
Example: hosts deny = 150.203.4. badhost.mynet.edu.au
hosts equiv (G)
If this global parameter is a non-null string, it specifies the
name of a file to read for the names of hosts and users who will
be allowed access without specifying a password.
This is not be confused with hosts allow which is about hosts
access to services and is more useful for guest services. hosts
equiv may be useful for NT clients which will not supply pass-
words to Samba.
Note
The use of hosts equiv can be a major security hole. This is
because you are trusting the PC to supply the correct username.
It is very easy to get a PC to supply a false username. I recom-
mend that the hosts equiv option be only used if you really know
what you are doing, or perhaps on a home network where you trust
your spouse and kids. And only if you really trust them :-).
Default: hosts equiv = # no host equivalences
Example: hosts equiv = hosts equiv = /etc/hosts.equiv
idmap backend (G)
The purpose of the idmap backend parameter is to allow idmap to
NOT use the local idmap tdb file to obtain SID to UID / GID map-
pings, but instead to obtain them from a common LDAP backend.
This way all domain members and controllers will have the same
UID and GID to SID mappings. This avoids the risk of UID / GID
inconsistencies across UNIX / Linux systems that are sharing
information over protocols other than SMB/CIFS (ie: NFS).
An alternate method of SID to UID / GID mapping can be achieved
using the idmap_rid plug-in. This plug-in uses the account RID
to derive the UID and GID by adding the RID to a base value
specified. This utility requires that the parameter``allow
trusted domains = No'' must be specified, as it is not compati-
ble with multiple domain environments. The idmap uid and idmap
gid ranges must also be specified.
Default: idmap backend =
Example: idmap backend = ldap:ldap://ldapslave.example.com
Example: idmap backend = idmap_rid:DOMNAME=1000-100000000
winbind gid
This parameter is a synonym for idmap gid.
idmap gid (G)
The idmap gid parameter specifies the range of group ids that
are allocated for the purpose of mapping UNX groups to NT group
SIDs. This range of group ids should have no existing local or
NIS groups within it as strange conflicts can occur otherwise.
The availability of an idmap gid range is essential for correct
operation of all group mapping.
Default: idmap gid =
Example: idmap gid = 10000-20000
winbind uid
This parameter is a synonym for idmap uid.
idmap uid (G)
The idmap uid parameter specifies the range of user ids that are
allocated for use in mapping UNIX users to NT user SIDs. This
range of ids should have no existing local or NIS users within
it as strange conflicts can occur otherwise.
Default: idmap uid =
Example: idmap uid = 10000-20000
include (G)
This allows you to include one config file inside another. The
file is included literally, as though typed in place.
It takes the standard substitutions, except %u , %P and %S.
Default: include =
Example: include = /usr/local/samba/lib/admin_smb.conf
inherit acls (S)
This parameter can be used to ensure that if default acls exist
on parent directories, they are always honored when creating a
subdirectory. The default behavior is to use the mode specified
when creating the directory. Enabling this option sets the mode
to 0777, thus guaranteeing that default directory acls are prop-
agated.
Default: inherit acls = no
inherit owner (S)
The ownership of new files and directories is normally governed
by effective uid of the connected user. This option allows the
Samba administrator to specify that the ownership for new files
and directories should be controlled by the ownership of the
parent directory.
Common scenarios where this behavior is useful is in implement-
ing drop-boxes where users can create and edit files but not
delete them and to ensure that newly create files in a user's
roaming profile directory are actually owner by the user.
Default: inherit owner = no
inherit permissions (S)
The permissions on new files and directories are normally gov-
erned by create mask, directory mask, force create mode and
force directory mode but the boolean inherit permissions parame-
ter overrides this.
New directories inherit the mode of the parent directory,
including bits such as setgid.
New files inherit their read/write bits from the parent direc-
tory. Their execute bits continue to be determined by map ar-
chive, map hidden and map system as usual.
Note that the setuid bit is never set via inheritance (the code
explicitly prohibits this).
This can be particularly useful on large systems with many
users, perhaps several thousand, to allow a single [homes] share
to be used flexibly by each user.
Default: inherit permissions = no
interfaces (G)
This option allows you to override the default network inter-
faces list that Samba will use for browsing, name registration
and other NBT traffic. By default Samba will query the kernel
for the list of all active interfaces and use any interfaces
except 127.0.0.1 that are broadcast capable.
The option takes a list of interface strings. Each string can be
in any of the following forms:
o a network interface name (such as eth0). This may include
shell-like wildcards so eth* will match any interface start-
ing with the substring "eth"
o an IP address. In this case the netmask is determined from
the list of interfaces obtained from the kernel
o an IP/mask pair.
o a broadcast/mask pair.
The "mask" parameters can either be a bit length (such as 24 for
a C class network) or a full netmask in dotted decimal form.
The "IP" parameters above can either be a full dotted decimal IP
address or a hostname which will be looked up via the OS's nor-
mal hostname resolution mechanisms.
Default: interfaces = # all active interfaces except 127.0.0.1
that are broadcast capable
Example: interfaces = # This would configure three network
interfaces corresponding to the eth0 device and IP addresses
192.168.2.10 and 192.168.3.10. The netmasks of the latter two
interfaces would be set to 255.255.255.0. eth0 192.168.2.10/24
192.168.3.10/255.255.255.0
invalid users (S)
This is a list of users that should not be allowed to login to
this service. This is really a paranoid check to absolutely
ensure an improper setting does not breach your security.
A name starting with a '@' is interpreted as an NIS netgroup
first (if your system supports NIS), and then as a UNIX group if
the name was not found in the NIS netgroup database.
A name starting with '+' is interpreted only by looking in the
UNIX group database. A name starting with '&' is interpreted
only by looking in the NIS netgroup database (this requires NIS
to be working on your system). The characters '+' and '&' may be
used at the start of the name in either order so the value
+&group means check the UNIX group database, followed by the NIS
netgroup database, and the value &+group means check the NIS
netgroup database, followed by the UNIX group database (the same
as the '@' prefix).
The current servicename is substituted for %S. This is useful in
the [homes] section.
Default: invalid users = # no invalid users
Example: invalid users = root fred admin @wheel
keepalive (G)
The value of the parameter (an integer) represents the number of
seconds between keepalive packets. If this parameter is zero, no
keepalive packets will be sent. Keepalive packets, if sent,
allow the server to tell whether a client is still present and
responding.
Keepalives should, in general, not be needed if the socket being
used has the SO_KEEPALIVE attribute set on it (see socket
options). Basically you should only use this option if you
strike difficulties.
Default: keepalive = 300
Example: keepalive = 600
kernel change notify (G)
This parameter specifies whether Samba should ask the kernel for
change notifications in directories so that SMB clients can
refresh whenever the data on the server changes.
This parameter is only used when your kernel supports change
notification to user programs, using the F_NOTIFY fcntl.
Default: kernel change notify = yes
kernel oplocks (G)
For UNIXes that support kernel based oplocks (currently only
IRIX and the Linux 2.4 kernel), this parameter allows the use of
them to be turned on or off.
Kernel oplocks support allows Samba oplocks to be broken when-
ever a local UNIX process or NFS operation accesses a file that
smbd(8) has oplocked. This allows complete data consistency
between SMB/CIFS, NFS and local file access (and is a very cool
feature :-).
This parameter defaults to on, but is translated to a no-op on
systems that no not have the necessary kernel support. You
should never need to touch this parameter.
Default: kernel oplocks = yes
lanman auth (G)
This parameter determines whether or not smbd(8) will attempt to
authenticate users or permit password changes using the LANMAN
password hash. If disabled, only clients which support NT pass-
word hashes (e.g. Windows NT/2000 clients, smbclient, but not
Windows 95/98 or the MS DOS network client) will be able to con-
nect to the Samba host.
The LANMAN encrypted response is easily broken, due to it's
case-insensitive nature, and the choice of algorithm. Servers
without Windows 95/98/ME or MS DOS clients are advised to dis-
able this option.
Unlike the encypt passwords option, this parameter cannot alter
client behaviour, and the LANMAN response will still be sent
over the network. See the client lanman auth to disable this for
Samba's clients (such as smbclient)
If this option, and ntlm auth are both disabled, then only
NTLMv2 logins will be permited. Not all clients support NTLMv2,
and most will require special configuration to use it.
Default: lanman auth = yes
large readwrite (G)
This parameter determines whether or not smbd(8) supports the
new 64k streaming read and write varient SMB requests introduced
with Windows 2000. Note that due to Windows 2000 client redirec-
tor bugs this requires Samba to be running on a 64-bit capable
operating system such as IRIX, Solaris or a Linux 2.4 kernel.
Can improve performance by 10% with Windows 2000 clients.
Defaults to on. Not as tested as some other Samba code paths.
Default: large readwrite = yes
ldap admin dn (G)
The ldap admin dn defines the Distinguished Name (DN) name used
by Samba to contact the ldap server when retreiving user account
information. The ldap admin dn is used in conjunction with the
admin dn password stored in the private/secrets.tdb file. See
the smbpasswd(8) man page for more information on how to accm-
plish this.
No default
ldap delete dn (G)
This parameter specifies whether a delete operation in the ldap-
sam deletes the complete entry or only the attributes specific
to Samba.
Default: ldap delete dn = no
ldap filter (G)
This parameter specifies the RFC 2254 compliant LDAP search fil-
ter. The default is to match the login name with the uid
attribute. Note that this filter should only return one entry.
Default: ldap filter = (uid=%u)
Example: ldap filter = (&(uid=%u)(objectclass=sambaSamAccount))
ldap group suffix (G)
This parameters specifies the suffix that is used for groups
when these are added to the LDAP directory. If this parameter is
unset, the value of ldap suffix will be used instead.
Default: ldap group suffix =
Example: ldap group suffix = ou=Groups,dc=samba,ou=Groups
ldap idmap suffix (G)
This parameters specifies the suffix that is used when storing
idmap mappings. If this parameter is unset, the value of ldap
suffix will be used instead.
Default: ldap idmap suffix =
Example: ldap idmap suffix = ou=Idmap,dc=samba,dc=org
ldap machine suffix (G)
It specifies where machines should be added to the ldap tree.
Default: ldap machine suffix =
ldap passwd sync (G)
This option is used to define whether or not Samba should sync
the LDAP password with the NT and LM hashes for normal accounts
(NOT for workstation, server or domain trusts) on a password
change via SAMBA.
The ldap passwd sync can be set to one of three values:
o Yes = Try to update the LDAP, NT and LM passwords and update
the pwdLastSet time.
o No = Update NT and LM passwords and update the pwdLastSet
time.
o Only = Only update the LDAP password and let the LDAP server
do the rest.
Default: ldap passwd sync = no
ldap port (G)
This parameter is only available if Samba has been configure to
include the --with-ldapsam option at compile time.
This option is used to control the tcp port number used to con-
tact the ldap server. The default is to use the stand LDAPS port
636.
Default: ldap port = 636 # if ldap ssl = on
Default: ldap port = 389 # if ldap ssl = off
ldap replication sleep (G)
When Samba is asked to write to a read-only LDAP replica, we are
redirected to talk to the read-write master server. This server
then replicates our changes back to the 'local' server, however
the replication might take some seconds, especially over slow
links. Certain client activities, particularly domain joins, can
become confused by the 'success' that does not immediately
change the LDAP back-end's data.
This option simply causes Samba to wait a short time, to allow
the LDAP server to catch up. If you have a particularly
high-latency network, you may wish to time the LDAP replication
with a network sniffer, and increase this value accordingly. Be
aware that no checking is performed that the data has actually
replicated.
The value is specified in milliseconds, the maximum value is
5000 (5 seconds).
Default: ldap replication sleep = 1000
ldapsam:trusted (G)
By default, Samba as a Domain Controller with an LDAP backend
needs to use the Unix-style NSS subsystem to access user and
group information. Due to the way Unix stores user information
in /etc/passwd and /etc/group this inevitably leads to ineffi-
ciencies. One important question a user needs to know is the
list of groups he is member of. The plain Unix model involves a
complete enumeration of the file /etc/group and its NSS counter-
parts in LDAP. In this particular case there often optimized
functions are available in Unix, but for other queries there is
no optimized function available.
To make Samba scale well in large environments, the ldap-
sam:trusted=yes option assumes that the complete user and group
database that is relevant to Samba is stored in LDAP with the
standard posixAccount/posixGroup model, and that the Samba aux-
iliary object classes are stored together with the the posix
data in the same LDAP object. If these assumptions are met,
ldapsam:trusted=yes can be activated and Samba can completely
bypass the NSS system to query user information. Optimized LDAP
queries can speed up domain logon and administration tasks a
lot. Depending on the size of the LDAP database a factor of 100
or more for common queries is easily achieved.
Default: ldapsam:trusted = no
ldap server (G)
This parameter is only available if Samba has been configure to
include the --with-ldapsam option at compile time.
This parameter should contain the FQDN of the ldap directory
server which should be queried to locate user account informa-
tion.
Default: ldap server = localhost
ldap ssl (G)
This option is used to define whether or not Samba should use
SSL when connecting to the ldap server This is NOT related to
Samba's previous SSL support which was enabled by specifying
the--with-ssl option to the configure script.
The ldap ssl can be set to one of three values:
o Off = Never use SSL when querying the directory.
o Start_tls = Use the LDAPv3 StartTLS extended operation
(RFC2830) for communicating with the directory server.
o On = Use SSL on the ldaps port when contacting the ldap
server. Only available when the backwards-compatiblity
--with-ldapsam option is specified to configure. See passdb
backend
Default: ldap ssl = start_tls
ldap suffix (G)
Specifies where user and machine accounts are added to the tree.
Can be overriden by ldap user suffix and ldap machine suffix. It
also used as the base dn for all ldap searches.
Default: ldap suffix =
ldap timeout (G)
When Samba connects to an ldap server that server may be down or
unreachable. To prevent Samba from hanging whilst waiting for
the connection this parameter specifies in seconds how long
Samba should wait before failing the connect. The default is to
only wait fifteen seconds for the ldap server to respond to the
connect request.
Default: ldap timeout = 15
ldap user suffix (G)
This parameter specifies where users are added to the tree. If
this parameter is not specified, the value from ldap suffix.
Default: ldap user suffix =
level2 oplocks (S)
This parameter controls whether Samba supports level2
(read-only) oplocks on a share.
Level2, or read-only oplocks allow Windows NT clients that have
an oplock on a file to downgrade from a read-write oplock to a
read-only oplock once a second client opens the file (instead of
releasing all oplocks on a second open, as in traditional,
exclusive oplocks). This allows all openers of the file that
support level2 oplocks to cache the file for read-ahead only
(ie. they may not cache writes or lock requests) and increases
performance for many accesses of files that are not commonly
written (such as application .EXE files).
Once one of the clients which have a read-only oplock writes to
the file all clients are notified (no reply is needed or waited
for) and told to break their oplocks to "none" and delete any
read-ahead caches.
It is recommended that this parameter be turned on to speed
access to shared executables.
For more discussions on level2 oplocks see the CIFS spec.
Currently, if kernel oplocks are supported then level2 oplocks
are not granted (even if this parameter is set to yes). Note
also, the oplocks parameter must be set to yes on this share in
order for this parameter to have any effect.
Default: level2 oplocks = yes
lm announce (G)
This parameter determines if nmbd(8) will produce Lanman
announce broadcasts that are needed by OS/2 clients in order for
them to see the Samba server in their browse list. This parame-
ter can have three values, yes, no, orauto. The default is auto.
If set to no Samba will never produce these broadcasts. If set
to yes Samba will produce Lanman announce broadcasts at a fre-
quency set by the parameterlm interval. If set to auto Samba
will not send Lanman announce broadcasts by default but will
listen for them. If it hears such a broadcast on the wire it
will then start sending them at a frequency set by the parame-
terlm interval.
Default: lm announce = auto
Example: lm announce = yes
lm interval (G)
If Samba is set to produce Lanman announce broadcasts needed by
OS/2 clients (see the lm announce parameter) then this parameter
defines the frequency in seconds with which they will be made.
If this is set to zero then no Lanman announcements will be made
despite the setting of the lm announce parameter.
Default: lm interval = 60
Example: lm interval = 120
load printers (G)
A boolean variable that controls whether all printers in the
printcap will be loaded for browsing by default. See the print-
ers section for more details.
Default: load printers = yes
local master (G)
This option allows nmbd(8) to try and become a local master
browser on a subnet. If set to no then nmbd will not attempt to
become a local master browser on a subnet and will also lose in
all browsing elections. By default this value is set to yes.
Setting this value toyes doesn't mean that Samba will become the
local master browser on a subnet, just that nmbd will partici-
pate in elections for local master browser.
Setting this value to no will cause nmbd never to become a
local master browser.
Default: local master = yes
lock dir
This parameter is a synonym for lock directory.
lock directory (G)
This option specifies the directory where lock files will be
placed. The lock files are used to implement themax connections
option.
Default: lock directory = ${prefix}/var/locks
Example: lock directory = /var/run/samba/locks
locking (S)
This controls whether or not locking will be performed by the
server in response to lock requests from the client.
If locking = no, all lock and unlock requests will appear to
succeed and all lock queries will report that the file in ques-
tion is available for locking.
If locking = yes, real locking will be performed by the server.
This option may be useful for read-only filesystems which may
not need locking (such as CDROM drives), although setting this
parameter of no is not really recommended even in this case.
Be careful about disabling locking either globally or in a spe-
cific service, as lack of locking may result in data corruption.
You should never need to set this parameter.
No default
lock spin count (G)
This parameter controls the number of times that smbd should
attempt to gain a byte range lock on the behalf of a client
request. Experiments have shown that Windows 2k servers do not
reply with a failure if the lock could not be immediately
granted, but try a few more times in case the lock could later
be acquired. This behavior is used to support PC database for-
mats such as MS Access and FoxPro.
Default: lock spin count = 3
lock spin time (G)
The time in microseconds that smbd should pause before attempt-
ing to gain a failed lock. Seelock spin count for more details.
Default: lock spin time = 10
log file (G)
This option allows you to override the name of the Samba log
file (also known as the debug file).
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to
have separate log files for each user or machine.
No default
Example: log file = /usr/local/samba/var/log.%m
debuglevel
This parameter is a synonym for log level.
log level (G)
The value of the parameter (a astring) allows the debug level
(logging level) to be specified in the smb.conf file. This
parameter has been extended since the 2.2.x series, now it allow
to specify the debug level for multiple debug classes. This is
to give greater flexibility in the configuration of the system.
The default will be the log level specified on the command line
or level zero if none was specified.
No default
Example: log level = 3 passdb:5 auth:10 winbind:2
logon drive (G)
This parameter specifies the local path to which the home direc-
tory will be connected (see logon home) and is only used by NT
Workstations.
Note that this option is only useful if Samba is set up as a
logon server.
Default: logon drive = z:
Example: logon drive = h:
logon home (G)
This parameter specifies the home directory location when a
Win95/98 or NT Workstation logs into a Samba PDC. It allows you
to do
C:\> NET USE H: /HOME
from a command prompt, for example.
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to
have separate logon scripts for each user or machine.
This parameter can be used with Win9X workstations to ensure
that roaming profiles are stored in a subdirectory of the user's
home directory. This is done in the following way:
logon home = \\%N\%U\profile
This tells Samba to return the above string, with substitutions
made when a client requests the info, generally in a NetUserGet-
Info request. Win9X clients truncate the info to \\server\share
when a user does net use /home but use the whole string when
dealing with profiles.
Note that in prior versions of Samba, the logon path was
returned rather thanlogon home. This broke net use /home but
allowed profiles outside the home directory. The current imple-
mentation is correct, and can be used for profiles if you use
the above trick.
This option is only useful if Samba is set up as a logon server.
Default: logon home = \\%N\%U
Example: logon home = \\remote_smb_server\%U
logon path (G)
This parameter specifies the home directory where roaming pro-
files (NTuser.dat etc files for Windows NT) are stored. Contrary
to previous versions of these manual pages, it has nothing to do
with Win 9X roaming profiles. To find out how to handle roaming
profiles for Win 9X system, see the logon home parameter.
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to
have separate logon scripts for each user or machine. It also
specifies the directory from which the "Application Data",
(desktop, start menu,network neighborhood, programs and other
folders, and their contents, are loaded and displayed on your
Windows NT client.
The share and the path must be readable by the user for the
preferences and directories to be loaded onto the Windows NT
client. The share must be writeable when the user logs in for
the first time, in order that the Windows NT client can create
the NTuser.dat and other directories.
Thereafter, the directories and any of the contents can, if
required, be made read-only. It is not advisable that the
NTuser.dat file be made read-only - rename it to NTuser.man to
achieve the desired effect (a MANdatory profile).
Windows clients can sometimes maintain a connection to the
[homes] share, even though there is no user logged in. There-
fore, it is vital that the logon path does not include a refer-
ence to the homes share (i.e. setting this parameter to
\%N\%U\profile_path will cause problems).
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to
have separate logon scripts for each user or machine.
Warning
Do not quote the value. Setting this as ``\\%N\profile\%U'' will
break profile handling.
Note that this option is only useful if Samba is set up as a logon
server.
Default: logon path = \\%N\%U\profile
Example: logon path = >\\PROFILESERVER\PROFILE\%U
logon script (G)
This parameter specifies the batch file (.bat) or NT command
file (.cmd) to be downloaded and run on a machine when a user
successfully logs in. The file must contain the DOS style CR/LF
line endings. Using a DOS-style editor to create the file is
recommended.
The script must be a relative path to the [netlogon] service. If
the [netlogon] service specifies a path of /usr/local/samba/net-
logon, and logon script = STARTUP.BAT, then the file that will
be downloaded is:
/usr/local/samba/netlogon/STARTUP.BAT
The contents of the batch file are entirely your choice. A sug-
gested command would be to add NET TIME \\SERVER /SET /YES, to
force every machine to synchronize clocks with the same time
server. Another use would be to add NET USE U: \\SERVER\UTILS
for commonly used utilities, or
NET USE Q: \\SERVER\ISO9001_QA.fi
for example.
Note that it is particularly important not to allow write access to the [netlogon] share, or to grant users write permission on the batch files in a secure environment, as this would allow the batch files to be arbitrarily modified and security to be breached.
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to have separate logon scripts for each user or machine.
This option is only useful if Samba is set up as a logon server.
Default: logon script =
Example: logon script = scripts\%U.bat
lppause command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the server host in order to stop printing or spooling a specific print job.
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer name and job number to pause the print job. One way of implementing this is by using job priorities, where jobs having a too low priority won't be sent to the printer.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. A %j is replaced with the job number (an integer). On HPUX (see printing=hpux ), if the -p%p option is added to the lpq command, the job will show up with the correct status, i.e. if the job priority is lower than the set fence priority it will have the PAUSED status, whereas if the priority is equal or higher it will have the SPOOLED or PRINTING status.
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in the lppause command as the PATH may not be available to the server.
Default: lppause command = # Currently no default value is given to this string, unless the value of the printing parameter is SYSV, in which case the default is : lp -i %p-%j -H hold or if the value of the printing parameter is SOFTQ, then the default is: qstat -s -j%j -h.
Example: lppause command = /usr/bin/lpalt %p-%j -p0
lpq cache time (G)
This controls how long lpq info will be cached for to prevent the lpq command being called too often. A separate cache is kept for each variation of the lpq command used by the system, so if you use differentlpq commands for different users then they won't share cache information.
The cache files are stored in /tmp/lpq.xxxx where xxxx is a hash of the lpq command in use.
The default is 10 seconds, meaning that the cached results of a previous identical lpq command will be used if the cached data is less than 10 seconds old. A large value may be advisable if your lpq command is very slow.
A value of 0 will disable caching completely.
Default: lpq cache time = 10
Example: lpq cache time = 30
lpq command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the server host in order to obtain lpq -style printer status information.
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer name as its only parameter and outputs printer status information.
Currently nine styles of printer status information are supported; BSD, AIX, LPRNG, PLP, SYSV, HPUX, QNX, CUPS, and SOFTQ. This covers most UNIX systems. You control which type is expected using the printing = option.
Some clients (notably Windows for Workgroups) may not correctly send the connection number for the printer they are requesting status information about. To get around this, the server reports on the first printer service connected to by the client. This only happens if the connection number sent is invalid.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. Otherwise it is placed at the end of the command.
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in the lpq command as the $PATH may not be available to the server. When compiled with the CUPS libraries, no lpq command is needed because smbd will make a library call to obtain the print queue listing.
Default: lpq command =
Example: lpq command = /usr/bin/lpq -P%p
lpresume command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the server host in order to restart or continue printing or spooling a specific print job.
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer name and job number to resume the print job. See also the lppause command parameter.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. A %j is replaced with the job number (an integer).
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in the lpresume command as the PATH may not be available to the server.
See also the printing parameter.
Default: Currently no default value is given to this string, unless the value of the printing parameter is SYSV, in which case the default is :
lp -i %p-%j -H resume
or if the value of the printing parameter is SOFTQ, then the default is:
qstat -s -j%j -r
Default: lpresume command = lpresume command = /usr/bin/lpalt %p-%j -p2
lprm command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the server host in order to delete a print job.
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer name and job number, and deletes the print job.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. A %j is replaced with the job number (an integer).
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in the lprm command as the PATH may not be available to the server.
Default: lprm command = # depends on the setting of printing
Example: lprm command = /usr/bin/lprm -P%p %j
Example: lprm command = /usr/bin/cancel %p-%j
machine password timeout (G)
If a Samba server is a member of a Windows NT Domain (see the security = domain parameter) then periodically a running smbd process will try and change the MACHINE ACCOUNT PASSWORD stored in the TDB called private/secrets.tdb . This parameter specifies how often this password will be changed, in seconds. The default is one week (expressed in seconds), the same as a Windows NT Domain member server.
See also smbpasswd(8), and the security = domain parameter.
Default: machine password timeout = 604800
magic output (S)
This parameter specifies the name of a file which will contain output created by a magic script (see themagic script parameter below).
Warning
If two clients use the same magic script in the same directory the output file content is undefined.
Default: magic output = <magic script name>.out
Example: magic output = myfile.txt
magic script (S)
This parameter specifies the name of a file which, if opened, will be executed by the server when the file is closed. This allows a UNIX script to be sent to the Samba host and executed on behalf of the connected user.
Scripts executed in this way will be deleted upon completion assuming that the user has the appropriate level of privilege and the file permissions allow the deletion.
If the script generates output, output will be sent to the file specified by the magic output parameter (see above).
Note that some shells are unable to interpret scripts containing CR/LF instead of CR as the end-of-line marker. Magic scripts must be executableas is on the host, which for some hosts and some shells will require filtering at the DOS end.
Magic scripts are EXPERIMENTAL and should NOT be relied upon.
Default: magic script =
Example: magic script = user.csh
mangled map (S)
This is for those who want to directly map UNIX file names which cannot be represented on Windows/DOS. The mangling of names is not always what is needed. In particular you may have documents with file extensions that differ between DOS and UNIX. For example, under UNIX it is common to use .html for HTML files, whereas under Windows/DOS .htm is more commonly used.
So to map html to htm you would use:
mangled map = (*.html *.htm)
One very useful case is to remove the annoying ;1 off the ends of filenames on some CDROMs (only visible under some UNIXes). To do this use a map of (*;1 *;).
Default: mangled map = # no mangled map
Example: mangled map = (*;1 *;)
mangled names (S)
This controls whether non-DOS names under UNIX should be mapped to DOS-compatible names ("mangled") and made visible, or whether non-DOS names should simply be ignored.
See the section on NAME MANGLING for details on how to control the mangling process.
If mangling is used then the mangling algorithm is as follows:
o The first (up to) five alphanumeric characters before the rightmost dot of the filename are preserved, forced to upper case, and appear as the first (up to) five characters of the mangled name.
o A tilde "~" is appended to the first part of the mangled name, followed by a two-character unique sequence, based on the original root name (i.e., the original filename minus its final extension). The final extension is included in the hash calculation only if it contains any upper case characters or is longer than three characters.
Note that the character to use may be specified using the mangling char option, if you don't like '~'.
o Files whose UNIX name begins with a dot will be presented as DOS hidden files. The mangled name will be created as for other filenames, but with the leading dot removed and "___" as its extension regardless of actual original extension (that's three underscores).
The two-digit hash value consists of upper case alphanumeric characters.
This algorithm can cause name collisions only if files in a directory share the same first five alphanumeric characters. The probability of such a clash is 1/1300.
The name mangling (if enabled) allows a file to be copied between UNIX directories from Windows/DOS while retaining the long UNIX filename. UNIX files can be renamed to a new extension from Windows/DOS and will retain the same basename. Mangled names do not change between sessions.
Default: mangled names = yes
mangle prefix (G)
controls the number of prefix characters from the original name used when generating the mangled names. A larger value will give a weaker hash and therefore more name collisions. The minimum value is 1 and the maximum value is 6.
mangle prefix is effective only when mangling method is hash2.
Default: mangle prefix = 1
Example: mangle prefix = 4
mangling char (S)
This controls what character is used as the magic character in name mangling. The default is a '~' but this may interfere with some software. Use this option to set it to whatever you prefer. This is effective only when mangling method is hash.
Default: mangling char = ~
Example: mangling char = ^
mangling method (G)
controls the algorithm used for the generating the mangled names. Can take two different values, "hash" and "hash2". "hash" is the algorithm that was used used in Samba for many years and was the default in Samba 2.2.x "hash2" is now the default and is newer and considered a better algorithm (generates less collisions) in the names. Many Win32 applications store the mangled names and so changing to algorithms must not be done lightly as these applications may break unless reinstalled.
Default: mangling method = hash2
Example: mangling method = hash
map acl inherit (S)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will attempt to map the 'inherit' and 'protected' access control entry flags stored in Windows ACLs into an extended attribute called user.SAMBA_PAI. This parameter only takes effect if Samba is being run on a platform that supports extended attributes (Linux and IRIX so far) and allows the Windows 2000 ACL editor to correctly use inheritance with the Samba POSIX ACL mapping code.
Default: map acl inherit = no
map archive (S)
This controls whether the DOS archive attribute should be mapped to the UNIX owner execute bit. The DOS archive bit is set when a file has been modified since its last backup. One motivation for this option it to keep Samba/your PC from making any file it touches from becoming executable under UNIX. This can be quite annoying for shared source code, documents, etc...
Note that this requires the create mask parameter to be set such that owner execute bit is not masked out (i.e. it must include 100). See the parameter create mask for details.
Default: map archive = yes
map hidden (S)
This controls whether DOS style hidden files should be mapped to the UNIX world execute bit.
Note that this requires the create mask to be set such that the world execute bit is not masked out (i.e. it must include 001). See the parameter create mask for details.
No default
map system (S)
This controls whether DOS style system files should be mapped to the UNIX group execute bit.
Note that this requires the create mask to be set such that the group execute bit is not masked out (i.e. it must include 010). See the parameter create mask for details.
Default: map system = no
map to guest (G)
This parameter is only useful in security modes other than security = share - i.e. user, server, and domain.
This parameter can take three different values, which tell smbd(8) what to do with user login requests that don't match a valid UNIX user in some way.
The three settings are :
o Never - Means user login requests with an invalid password are rejected. This is the default.
o Bad User - Means user logins with an invalid password are rejected, unless the username does not exist, in which case it is treated as a guest login and mapped into the guest account.
o Bad Password - Means user logins with an invalid password are treated as a guest login and mapped into the guest account. Note that this can cause problems as it means that any user incorrectly typing their password will be silently logged on as "guest" - and will not know the reason they cannot access files they think they should - there will have been no message given to them that they got their password wrong. Helpdesk services will hate you if you set the map to guest parameter this way :-).
Note that this parameter is needed to set up "Guest" share services when using security modes other than share. This is because in these modes the name of the resource being requested is not sent to the server until after the server has successfully authenticated the client so the server cannot make authentication decisions at the correct time (connection to the share) for "Guest" shares.
For people familiar with the older Samba releases, this parameter maps to the old compile-time setting of the GUEST_SESSSETUP value in local.h.
Default: map to guest = Never
Example: map to guest = Bad User
max connections (S)
This option allows the number of simultaneous connections to a service to be limited. If max connections is greater than 0 then connections will be refused if this number of connections to the service are already open. A value of zero mean an unlimited number of connections may be made.
Record lock files are used to implement this feature. The lock files will be stored in the directory specified by the lock directory option.
Default: max connections = 0
Example: max connections = 10
max disk size (G)
This option allows you to put an upper limit on the apparent size of disks. If you set this option to 100 then all shares will appear to be not larger than 100 MB in size.
Note that this option does not limit the amount of data you can put on the disk. In the above case you could still store much more than 100 MB on the disk, but if a client ever asks for the amount of free disk space or the total disk size then the result will be bounded by the amount specified in max disk size.
This option is primarily useful to work around bugs in some pieces of software that can't handle very large disks, particularly disks over 1GB in size.
A max disk size of 0 means no limit.
Default: max disk size = 0
Example: max disk size = 1000
max log size (G)
This option (an integer in kilobytes) specifies the max size the log file should grow to. Samba periodically checks the size and if it is exceeded it will rename the file, adding a .old extension.
A size of 0 means no limit.
Default: max log size = 5000
Default: max log size = 1000
max mux (G)
This option controls the maximum number of outstanding simultaneous SMB operations that Samba tells the client it will allow. You should never need to set this parameter.
Default: max mux = 50
max open files (G)
This parameter limits the maximum number of open files that one smbd(8) file serving process may have open for a client at any one time. The default for this parameter is set very high (10,000) as Samba uses only one bit per unopened file.
The limit of the number of open files is usually set by the UNIX per-process file descriptor limit rather than this parameter so you should never need to touch this parameter.
Default: max open files = 10000
max print jobs (S)
This parameter limits the maximum number of jobs allowable in a Samba printer queue at any given moment. If this number is exceeded, smbd(8) will remote "Out of Space" to the client.
Default: max print jobs = 1000
Example: max print jobs = 5000
protocol
This parameter is a synonym for max protocol.
max protocol (G)
The value of the parameter (a string) is the highest protocol level that will be supported by the server.
Possible values are :
o CORE: Earliest version. No concept of user names.
o COREPLUS: Slight improvements on CORE for efficiency.
o LANMAN1: First modern version of the protocol. Long filename support.
o LANMAN2: Updates to Lanman1 protocol.
o NT1: Current up to date version of the protocol. Used by Windows NT. Known as CIFS.
Normally this option should not be set as the automatic negotiation phase in the SMB protocol takes care of choosing the appropriate protocol.
Default: max protocol = NT1
Example: max protocol = LANMAN1
max reported print jobs (S)
This parameter limits the maximum number of jobs displayed in a port monitor for Samba printer queue at any given moment. If this number is exceeded, the excess jobs will not be shown. A value of zero means there is no limit on the number of print jobs reported.
Default: max reported print jobs = 0
Example: max reported print jobs = 1000
max smbd processes (G)
This parameter limits the maximum number of smbd(8) processes concurrently running on a system and is intended as a stopgap to prevent degrading service to clients in the event that the server has insufficient resources to handle more than this number of connections. Remember that under normal operating conditions, each user will have an smbd(8) associated with him or her to handle connections to all shares from a given host.
Default: max smbd processes = 0
Example: max smbd processes = 1000
max ttl (G)
This option tells nmbd(8) what the default 'time to live' of NetBIOS names should be (in seconds) when nmbd is requesting a name using either a broadcast packet or from a WINS server. You should never need to change this parameter. The default is 3 days.
Default: max ttl = 259200
max wins ttl (G)
This option tells smbd(8) when acting as a WINS server (wins support = yes) what the maximum 'time to live' of NetBIOS names that nmbd will grant will be (in seconds). You should never need to change this parameter. The default is 6 days (518400 seconds).
Default: max wins ttl = 518400
max xmit (G)
This option controls the maximum packet size that will be negotiated by Samba. The default is 65535, which is the maximum. In some cases you may find you get better performance with a smaller value. A value below 2048 is likely to cause problems.
Default: max xmit = 65535
Example: max xmit = 8192
message command (G)
This specifies what command to run when the server receives a WinPopup style message.
This would normally be a command that would deliver the message somehow. How this is to be done is up to your imagination.
An example is:
message command = csh -c 'xedit %s;rm %s' &
This delivers the message using xedit, then removes it afterwards. NOTE THAT IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT THIS COMMAND RETURN IMMEDIATELY. That's why I have the '&' on the end. If it doesn't return immediately then your PCs may freeze when sending messages (they should recover after 30 seconds, hopefully).
All messages are delivered as the global guest user. The command takes the standard substitutions, although %u won't work (%U may be better in this case).
Apart from the standard substitutions, some additional ones apply. In particular:
o %s = the filename containing the message.
o %t = the destination that the message was sent to (probably the server name).
o %f = who the message is from.
You could make this command send mail, or whatever else takes your fancy. Please let us know of any really interesting ideas you have.
Here's a way of sending the messages as mail to root:
message command = /bin/mail -s 'message from %f on %m' root < %s; rm %s
If you don't have a message command then the message won't be delivered and Samba will tell the sender there was an error. Unfortunately WfWg totally ignores the error code and carries on regardless, saying that the message was delivered.
If you want to silently delete it then try:
message command = rm %s
Default: message command =
Example: message command = csh -c 'xedit %s; rm %s' &
min passwd length
This parameter is a synonym for min password length.
min password length (G)
This option sets the minimum length in characters of a plaintext password that smbd will accept when performing UNIX password changing.
Default: min password length = 5
min print space (S)
This sets the minimum amount of free disk space that must be available before a user will be able to spool a print job. It is specified in kilobytes. The default is 0, which means a user can always spool a print job.
Default: min print space = 0
Example: min print space = 2000
min protocol (G)
The value of the parameter (a string) is the lowest SMB protocol dialect than Samba will support. Please refer to the max protocol parameter for a list of valid protocol names and a brief description of each. You may also wish to refer to the C source code in source/smbd/negprot.c for a listing of known protocol dialects supported by clients.
If you are viewing this parameter as a security measure, you should also refer to the lanman auth parameter. Otherwise, you should never need to change this parameter.
Default: min protocol = CORE
Example: min protocol = NT1
min wins ttl (G)
This option tells nmbd(8) when acting as a WINS server ( wins support = yes) what the minimum 'time to live' of NetBIOS names that nmbd will grant will be (in seconds). You should never need to change this parameter. The default is 6 hours (21600 seconds).
Default: min wins ttl = 21600
msdfs proxy (S)
This parameter indicates that the share is a stand-in for another CIFS share whose location is specified by the value of the parameter. When clients attempt to connect to this share, they are redirected to the proxied share using the SMB-Dfs protocol.
Only Dfs roots can act as proxy shares. Take a look at themsdfs root and host msdfs options to find out how to set up a Dfs root share.
No default
Example: msdfs proxy = \otherserver\someshare
msdfs root (S)
If set to yes, Samba treats the share as a Dfs root and allows clients to browse the distributed file system tree rooted at the share directory. Dfs links are specified in the share directory by symbolic links of the form msdfs:serverA\\shareA,serverB\\shareB and so on. For more information on setting up a Dfs tree on Samba, refer to ???.
Default: msdfs root = no
name cache timeout (G)
Specifies the number of seconds it takes before entries in samba's hostname resolve cache time out. If the timeout is set to 0. the caching is disabled.
Default: name cache timeout = 660
Example: name cache timeout = 0
name resolve order (G)
This option is used by the programs in the Samba suite to determine what naming services to use and in what order to resolve host names to IP addresses. Its main purpose to is to control how netbios name resolution is performed. The option takes a space separated string of name resolution options.
The options are: "lmhosts", "host", "wins" and "bcast". They cause names to be resolved as follows:
o 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.
o 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/nsswitch.conf file. Note that this method is used only if the NetBIOS name type being queried is the 0x20 (server) name type or 0x1c (domain controllers). The latter case is only useful for active directory domains and results in a DNS query for the SRV RR entry matching _ldap._tcp.domain.
o 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.
o bcast : Do a broadcast on each of the known local interfaces listed in the interfaces parameter. This is the least reliable of the name resolution methods as it depends on the target host being on a locally connected subnet.
The example below will cause the local lmhosts file to be examined first, followed by a broadcast attempt, followed by a normal system hostname lookup.
When Samba is functioning in ADS security mode (security = ads) it is advised to use following settings for name resolve order:
name resolve order = wins bcast
DC lookups will still be done via DNS, but fallbacks to netbios names will not inundate your DNS servers with needless querys for DOMAIN<0x1c> lookups.
Default: name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast
Example: name resolve order = lmhosts bcast host
netbios aliases (G)
This is a list of NetBIOS names that nmbd will advertise as additional names by which the Samba server is known. This allows one machine to appear in browse lists under multiple names. If a machine is acting as a browse server or logon server none of these names will be advertised as either browse server or logon servers, only the primary name of the machine will be advertised with these capabilities.
Default: netbios aliases = # empty string (no additional names)
Example: netbios aliases = TEST TEST1 TEST2
netbios name (G)
This sets the NetBIOS name by which a Samba server is known. By default it is the same as the first component of the host's DNS name. If a machine is a browse server or logon server this name (or the first component of the hosts DNS name) will be the name that these services are advertised under.
Default: netbios name = # machine DNS name
Example: netbios name = MYNAME
netbios scope (G)
This sets the NetBIOS scope that Samba will operate under. This should not be set unless every machine on your LAN also sets this value.
Default: netbios scope =
nis homedir (G)
Get the home share server from a NIS map. For UNIX systems that use an automounter, the user's home directory will often be mounted on a workstation on demand from a remote server.
When the Samba logon server is not the actual home directory server, but is mounting the home directories via NFS then two network hops would be required to access the users home directory if the logon server told the client to use itself as the SMB server for home directories (one over SMB and one over NFS). This can be very slow.
This option allows Samba to return the home share as being on a different server to the logon server and as long as a Samba daemon is running on the home directory server, it will be mounted on the Samba client directly from the directory server. When Samba is returning the home share to the client, it will consult the NIS map specified in homedir map and return the server listed there.
Note that for this option to work there must be a working NIS system and the Samba server with this option must also be a logon server.
Default: nis homedir = no
nt acl support (S)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will attempt to map UNIX permissions into Windows NT access control lists. This parameter was formally a global parameter in releases prior to 2.2.2.
Default: nt acl support = yes
ntlm auth (G)
This parameter determines whether or not smbd(8) will attempt to authenticate users using the NTLM encrypted password response. If disabled, either the lanman password hash or an NTLMv2 response will need to be sent by the client.
If this option, and lanman auth are both disabled, then only NTLMv2 logins will be permited. Not all clients support NTLMv2, and most will require special configuration to us it.
Default: ntlm auth = yes
nt pipe support (G)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will allow Windows NT clients to connect to the NT SMB specific IPC$ pipes. This is a developer debugging option and can be left alone.
Default: nt pipe support = yes
nt status support (G)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will negotiate NT specific status support with Windows NT/2k/XP clients. This is a developer debugging option and should be left alone. If this option is set to no then Samba offers exactly the same DOS error codes that versions prior to Samba 2.2.3 reported.
You should not need to ever disable this parameter.
Default: nt status support = yes
null passwords (G)
Allow or disallow client access to accounts that have null passwords.
See also smbpasswd(5).
Default: null passwords = no
obey pam restrictions (G)
When Samba 3.0 is configured to enable PAM support (i.e. --with-pam), this parameter will control whether or not Samba should obey PAM's account and session management directives. The default behavior is to use PAM for clear text authentication only and to ignore any account or session management. Note that Samba always ignores PAM for authentication in the case of encrypt passwords = yes. The reason is that PAM modules cannot support the challenge/response authentication mechanism needed in the presence of SMB password encryption.
Default: obey pam restrictions = no
only user (S)
This is a boolean option that controls whether connections with usernames not in the user list will be allowed. By default this option is disabled so that a client can supply a username to be used by the server. Enabling this parameter will force the server to only use the login names from the user list and is only really useful in share level security.
Note that this also means Samba won't try to deduce usernames from the service name. This can be annoying for the [homes] section. To get around this you could use user = %S which means your user list will be just the service name, which for home directories is the name of the user.
Default: only user = no
oplock break wait time (G)
This is a tuning parameter added due to bugs in both Windows 9x and WinNT. If Samba responds to a client too quickly when that client issues an SMB that can cause an oplock break request, then the network client can fail and not respond to the break request. This tuning parameter (which is set in milliseconds) is the amount of time Samba will wait before sending an oplock break request to such (broken) clients.
Warning
DO NOT CHANGE THIS PARAMETER UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE SAMBA OPLOCK CODE.
Default: oplock break wait time = 0
oplock contention limit (S)
This is a very advancedsmbd(8) tuning option to improve the efficiency of the granting of oplocks under multiple client contention for the same file.
In brief it specifies a number, which causes smbd(8)not to grant an oplock even when requested if the approximate number of clients contending for an oplock on the same file goes over this limit. This causes smbd to behave in a similar way to Windows NT.
Warning
DO NOT CHANGE THIS PARAMETER UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE SAMBA OPLOCK CODE.
Default: oplock contention limit = 2
oplocks (S)
This boolean option tells smbd whether to issue oplocks (opportunistic locks) to file open requests on this share. The oplock code can dramatically (approx. 30% or more) improve the speed of access to files on Samba servers. It allows the clients to aggressively cache files locally and you may want to disable this option for unreliable network environments (it is turned on by default in Windows NT Servers). For more information see the fileSpeed.txt in the Samba docs/ directory.
Oplocks may be selectively turned off on certain files with a share. See the veto oplock files parameter. On some systems oplocks are recognized by the underlying operating system. This allows data synchronization between all access to oplocked files, whether it be via Samba or NFS or a local UNIX process. See thekernel oplocks parameter for details.
Default: oplocks = yes
os2 driver map (G)
The parameter is used to define the absolute path to a file containing a mapping of Windows NT printer driver names to OS/2 printer driver names. The format is:
<nt driver name> = <os2 driver name>.<device name>
For example, a valid entry using the HP LaserJet 5 printer driver would appear as HP LaserJet 5L = LASERJET.HP LaserJet 5L.
The need for the file is due to the printer driver namespace problem described in ???. For more details on OS/2 clients, please refer to ???.
Default: os2 driver map =
os level (G)
This integer value controls what level Samba advertises itself as for browse elections. The value of this parameter determines whether nmbd(8) has a chance of becoming a local master browser for the WORKGROUP in the local broadcast area.
Note :By default, Samba will win a local master browsing election over all Microsoft operating systems except a Windows NT 4.0/2000 Domain Controller. This means that a misconfigured Samba host can effectively isolate a subnet for browsing purposes. See BROWSING.txt in the Samba docs/ directory for details.
Default: os level = 20
Example: os level = 65
pam password change (G)
With the addition of better PAM support in Samba 2.2, this parameter, it is possible to use PAM's password change control flag for Samba. If enabled, then PAM will be used for password changes when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in passwd program. It should be possible to enable this without changing your passwd chat parameter for most setups.
Default: pam password change = no
panic action (G)
This is a Samba developer option that allows a system command to be called when either smbd(8) or smbd(8)crashes. This is usually used to draw attention to the fact that a problem occurred.
Default: panic action =
Example: panic action = "/bin/sleep 90000"
paranoid server security (G)
Some version of NT 4.x allow non-guest users with a bad passowrd. When this option is enabled, samba will not use a broken NT 4.x server as password server, but instead complain to the logs and exit.
Disabling this option prevents Samba from making this check, which involves deliberatly attempting a bad logon to the remote server.
Default: paranoid server security = yes
passdb backend (G)
This option allows the administrator to chose which backends to retrieve and store passwords with. This allows (for example) both smbpasswd and tdbsam to be used without a recompile. Multiple backends can be specified, separated by spaces. The backends will be searched in the order they are specified. New users are always added to the first backend specified.
This parameter is in two parts, the backend's name, and a 'location' string that has meaning only to that particular backed. These are separated by a : character.
Available backends can include:
o smbpasswd - The default smbpasswd backend. Takes a path to the smbpasswd file as an optional argument.
o tdbsam - The TDB based password storage backend. Takes a path to the TDB as an optional argument (defaults to passdb.tdb in the private dir directory.
o ldapsam - The LDAP based passdb backend. Takes an LDAP URL as an optional argument (defaults to ldap://localhost)
LDAP connections should be secured where possible. This may be done using either Start-TLS (see ldap ssl) or by specifying ldaps:// in the URL argument.
Multiple servers may also be specified in double-quotes, if your LDAP libraries supports the LDAP URL notation. (OpenLDAP does).
o nisplussam - The NIS+ based passdb backend. Takes name NIS domain as an optional argument. Only works with sun NIS+ servers.
o mysql - The MySQL based passdb backend. Takes an identifier as argument. Read the Samba HOWTO Collection for configuration details.
Default: passdb backend = smbpasswd
Example: passdb backend = tdbsam:/etc/samba/private/passdb.tdb smbpasswd:/etc/samba/smbpasswd
Example: passdb backend = ldapsam:ldaps://ldap.example.com
Example: passdb backend = ldapsam:"ldap://ldap-1.example.com ldap://ldap-2.example.com"
Example: passdb backend = mysql:my_plugin_args tdbsam
passwd chat (G)
This string controls the "chat" conversation that takes places between smbd(8) and the local password changing program to change the user's password. The string describes a sequence of response-receive pairs that smbd(8) uses to determine what to send to the passwd program and what to expect back. If the expected output is not received then the password is not changed.
This chat sequence is often quite site specific, depending on what local methods are used for password control (such as NIS etc).
Note that this parameter only is only used if the unix password sync parameter is set to yes. This sequence is then called AS ROOT when the SMB password in the smbpasswd file is being changed, without access to the old password cleartext. This means that root must be able to reset the user's password without knowing the text of the previous password. In the presence of NIS/YP, this means that the passwd program must be executed on the NIS master.
The string can contain the macro %n which is substituted for the new password. The chat sequence can also contain the standard macros \n, \r, \t and \s to give line-feed, carriage-return, tab and space. The chat sequence string can also contain a '*' which matches any sequence of characters. Double quotes can be used to collect strings with spaces in them into a single string.
If the send string in any part of the chat sequence is a full stop ".", then no string is sent. Similarly, if the expect string is a full stop then no string is expected.
If the pam password change parameter is set to yes, the chat pairs may be matched in any order, and success is determined by the PAM result, not any particular output. The \n macro is ignored for PAM conversions.
Default: passwd chat = *new*password* %n\n*new*password* %n\n *changed*
Example: passwd chat = "*Enter OLD password*" %o\n "*Enter NEW password*" %n\n "*Reenter NEW password*" %n\n "*Password changed*"
passwd chat debug (G)
This boolean specifies if the passwd chat script parameter is run in debug mode. In this mode the strings passed to and received from the passwd chat are printed in the smbd(8) log with a debug level of 100. This is a dangerous option as it will allow plaintext passwords to be seen in the smbd log. It is available to help Samba admins debug their passwd chat scripts when calling the passwd program and should be turned off after this has been done. This option has no effect if the pam password change paramter is set. This parameter is off by default.
Default: passwd chat debug = no
passwd chat timeout (G)
This integer specifies the number of seconds smbd will wait for an initial answer from a passwd chat script being run. Once the initial answer is received the subsequent answers must be received in one tenth of this time. The default it two seconds.
Default: passwd chat timeout = 2
passwd program (G)
The name of a program that can be used to set UNIX user passwords. Any occurrences of %u will be replaced with the user name. The user name is checked for existence before calling the password changing program.
Also note that many passwd programs insist in reasonable passwords, such as a minimum length, or the inclusion of mixed case chars and digits. This can pose a problem as some clients (such as Windows for Workgroups) uppercase the password before sending it.
Note that if the unix password sync parameter is set to yes then this program is called AS ROOT before the SMB password in the smbpasswd file is changed. If this UNIX password change fails, then smbd will fail to change the SMB password also (this is by design).
If the unix password sync parameter is set this parameter MUST USE ABSOLUTE PATHS for ALL programs called, and must be examined for security implications. Note that by default unix password sync is set to no.
Default: passwd program =
Example: passwd program = /bin/passwd %u
password level (G)
Some client/server combinations have difficulty with mixed-case passwords. One offending client is Windows for Workgroups, which for some reason forces passwords to upper case when using the LANMAN1 protocol, but leaves them alone when using COREPLUS! Another problem child is the Windows 95/98 family of operating systems. These clients upper case clear text passwords even when NT LM 0.12 selected by the protocol negotiation request/response.
This parameter defines the maximum number of characters that may be upper case in passwords.
For example, say the password given was "FRED". If password level is set to 1, the following combinations would be tried if "FRED" failed:
"Fred", "fred", "fRed", "frEd","freD"
If password level was set to 2, the following combinations would also be tried:
"FRed", "FrEd", "FreD", "fREd", "fReD", "frED", ..
And so on.
The higher value this parameter is set to the more likely it is that a mixed case password will be matched against a single case password. However, you should be aware that use of this parameter reduces security and increases the time taken to process a new connection.
A value of zero will cause only two attempts to be made - the password as is and the password in all-lower case.
This parameter is used only when using plain-text passwords. It is not at all used when encrypted passwords as in use (that is the default since samba-3.0.0). Use this only when encrypt passwords = No.
Default: password level = 0
Example: password level = 4
password server (G)
By specifying the name of another SMB server or Active Directory domain controller with this option, and using security = [ads|domain|server] it is possible to get Samba to to do all its username/password validation using a specific remote server.
This option sets the name or IP address of the password server to use. New syntax has been added to support defining the port to use when connecting to the server the case of an ADS realm. To define a port other than the default LDAP port of 389, add the port number using a colon after the name or IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.100:389). If you do not specify a port, Samba will use the standard LDAP port of tcp/389. Note that port numbers have no effect on password servers for Windows NT 4.0 domains or netbios connections.
If parameter is a name, it is looked up using the parameter name resolve order and so may resolved by any method and order described in that parameter.
The password server must be a machine capable of using the "LM1.2X002" or the "NT LM 0.12" protocol, and it must be in user level security mode.
Note
Using a password server means your UNIX box (running Samba) is only as secure as your password server. DO NOT CHOOSE A PASSWORD SERVER THAT YOU DON'T COMPLETELY TRUST.
Never point a Samba server at itself for password serving. This will cause a loop and could lock up your Samba server!
The name of the password server takes the standard substitutions, but probably the only useful one is %m , which means the Samba server will use the incoming client as the password server. If you use this then you better trust your clients, and you had better restrict them with hosts allow!
If the security parameter is set to domain or ads, then the list of machines in this option must be a list of Primary or Backup Domain controllers for the Domain or the character '*', as the Samba server is effectively in that domain, and will use cryptographically authenticated RPC calls to authenticate the user logging on. The advantage of using security = domain is that if you list several hosts in the password server option then smbd will try each in turn till it finds one that responds. This is useful in case your primary server goes down.
If the password server option is set to the character '*', then Samba will attempt to auto-locate the Primary or Backup Domain controllers to authenticate against by doing a query for the name WORKGROUP<1C> and then contacting each server returned in the list of IP addresses from the name resolution source.
If the list of servers contains both names/IP's and the '*' character, the list is treated as a list of preferred domain controllers, but an auto lookup of all remaining DC's will be added to the list as well. Samba will not attempt to optimize this list by locating the closest DC.
If the security parameter is set to server, then there are different restrictions that security = domain doesn't suffer from:
o You may list several password servers in the password server parameter, however if an smbd makes a connection to a password server, and then the password server fails, no more users will be able to be authenticated from this smbd. This is a restriction of the SMB/CIFS protocol when in security = server mode and cannot be fixed in Samba.
o If you are using a Windows NT server as your password server then you will have to ensure that your users are able to login from the Samba server, as when in security = server mode the network logon will appear to come from there rather than from the users workstation.
Default: password server =
Example: password server = NT-PDC, NT-BDC1, NT-BDC2, *
Example: password server = windc.mydomain.com:389 192.168.1.101 *
Example: password server = *
directory
This parameter is a synonym for path.
path (S)
This parameter specifies a directory to which the user of the service is to be given access. In the case of printable services, this is where print data will spool prior to being submitted to the host for printing.
For a printable service offering guest access, the service should be readonly and the path should be world-writeable and have the sticky bit set. This is not mandatory of course, but you probably won't get the results you expect if you do otherwise.
Any occurrences of %u in the path will be replaced with the UNIX username that the client is using on this connection. Any occurrences of %m will be replaced by the NetBIOS name of the machine they are connecting from. These replacements are very useful for setting up pseudo home directories for users.
Note that this path will be based on root dir if one was specified.
Default: path =
Example: path = /home/fred
pid directory (G)
This option specifies the directory where pid files will be placed.
Default: pid directory = ${prefix}/var/locks
Example: pid directory = pid directory = /var/run/
posix locking (S)
The smbd(8) daemon maintains an database of file locks obtained by SMB clients. The default behavior is to map this internal database to POSIX locks. This means that file locks obtained by SMB clients are consistent with those seen by POSIX compliant applications accessing the files via a non-SMB method (e.g. NFS or local file access). You should never need to disable this parameter.
Default: posix locking = yes
postexec (S)
This option specifies a command to be run whenever the service is disconnected. It takes the usual substitutions. The command may be run as the root on some systems.
An interesting example may be to unmount server resources:
postexec = /etc/umount /cdrom
Default: postexec =
Example: postexec = echo \"%u disconnected from %S from %m (%I)\" >> /tmp/log
exec This parameter is a synonym for preexec.
preexec (S)
This option specifies a command to be run whenever the service is connected to. It takes the usual substitutions.
An interesting example is to send the users a welcome message every time they log in. Maybe a message of the day? Here is an example:
preexec = csh -c 'echo \"Welcome to %S!\" | /usr/local/samba/bin/smbclient -M %m -I %I' &
Of course, this could get annoying after a while :-)
See also preexec close and postexec .
Default: preexec =
Example: preexec = echo \"%u connected to %S from %m (%I)\" >> /tmp/log
preexec close (S)
This boolean option controls whether a non-zero return code from preexec should close the service being connected to.
Default: preexec close = no
prefered master
This parameter is a synonym for preferred master.
preferred master (G)
This boolean parameter controls ifnmbd(8) is a preferred master browser for its workgroup.
If this is set to yes, on startup, nmbd will force an election, and it will have a slight advantage in winning the election. It is recommended that this parameter is used in conjunction with domain master = yes, so that nmbd can guarantee becoming a domain master.
Use this option with caution, because if there are several hosts (whether Samba servers, Windows 95 or NT) that are preferred master browsers on the same subnet, they will each periodically and continuously attempt to become the local master browser. This will result in unnecessary broadcast traffic and reduced browsing capabilities.
Default: preferred master = auto
auto services
This parameter is a synonym for preload.
preload (G)
This is a list of services that you want to be automatically added to the browse lists. This is most useful for homes and printers services that would otherwise not be visible.
Note that if you just want all printers in your printcap file loaded then the load printers option is easier.
Default: preload =
Example: preload = fred lp colorlp
preload modules (G)
This is a list of paths to modules that should be loaded into smbd before a client connects. This improves the speed of smbd when reacting to new connections somewhat.
Default: preload modules =
Example: preload modules = /usr/lib/samba/passdb/mysql.so
preserve case (S)
This controls if new filenames are created with the case that the client passes, or if they are forced to be the default case .
See the section on NAME MANGLING for a fuller discussion.
Default: preserve case = yes
print ok
This parameter is a synonym for printable.
printable (S)
If this parameter is yes, then clients may open, write to and submit spool files on the directory specified for the service.
Note that a printable service will ALWAYS allow writing to the service path (user privileges permitting) via the spooling of print data. The read only parameter controls only non-printing access to the resource.
Default: printable = no
printcap cache time (G)
This option specifies the number of seconds before the printing subsystem is again asked for the known printers. If the value is greater than 60 the initial waiting time is set to 60 seconds to allow an earlier first rescan of the printing subsystem.
Setting this parameter to 0 (the default) disables any rescanning for new or removed printers after the initial startup.
Default: printcap cache time = 0
Example: printcap cache time = 600
printcap
This parameter is a synonym for printcap name.
printcap name (S)
This parameter may be used to override the compiled-in default printcap name used by the server (usually /etc/printcap). See the discussion of the [printers] section above for reasons why you might want to do this.
To use the CUPS printing interface set printcap name = cups . This should be supplemented by an addtional setting printing = cups in the [global] section. printcap name = cups will use the "dummy" printcap created by CUPS, as specified in your CUPS configuration file.
On System V systems that use lpstat to list available printers you can use printcap name = lpstat to automatically obtain lists of available printers. This is the default for systems that define SYSV at configure time in Samba (this includes most System V based systems). If printcap name is set to lpstat on these systems then Samba will launch lpstat -v and attempt to parse the output to obtain a printer list.
A minimal printcap file would look something like this:
print1|My Printer 1
print2|My Printer 2
print3|My Printer 3
print4|My Printer 4
print5|My Printer 5
where the '|' separates aliases of a printer. The fact that the
second alias has a space in it gives a hint to Samba that it's a
comment.
Note
Under AIX the default printcap name is /etc/qconfig. Samba will
assume the file is in AIX qconfig format if the stringqconfig
appears in the printcap filename.
Default: printcap name = /etc/printcap
Example: printcap name = /etc/myprintcap
print command (S)
After a print job has finished spooling to a service, this com-
mand will be used via a system() call to process the spool file.
Typically the command specified will submit the spool file to
the host's printing subsystem, but there is no requirement that
this be the case. The server will not remove the spool file, so
whatever command you specify should remove the spool file when
it has been processed, otherwise you will need to manually
remove old spool files.
The print command is simply a text string. It will be used ver-
batim after macro substitutions have been made:
%s, %f - the path to the spool file name
%p - the appropriate printer name
%J - the job name as transmitted by the client.
%c - The number of printed pages of the spooled job (if known).
%z - the size of the spooled print job (in bytes)
The print command MUST contain at least one occurrence of %s or
%f - the %p is optional. At the time a job is submitted, if no
printer name is supplied the %p will be silently removed from
the printer command.
If specified in the [global] section, the print command given
will be used for any printable service that does not have its
own print command specified.
If there is neither a specified print command for a printable
service nor a global print command, spool files will be created
but not processed and (most importantly) not removed.
Note that printing may fail on some UNIXes from the nobody
account. If this happens then create an alternative guest
account that can print and set the guest account in the [global]
section.
You can form quite complex print commands by realizing that they
are just passed to a shell. For example the following will log a
print job, print the file, then remove it. Note that ';' is the
usual separator for command in shell scripts.
print command = echo Printing %s >> /tmp/print.log; lpr -P %p
%s; rm %s
You may have to vary this command considerably depending on how
you normally print files on your system. The default for the
parameter varies depending on the setting of the printing param-
eter.
Default: For printing = BSD, AIX, QNX, LPRNG or PLP :
print command = lpr -r -P%p %s
For printing = SYSV or HPUX :
print command = lp -c -d%p %s; rm %s
For printing = SOFTQ :
print command = lp -d%p -s %s; rm %s
For printing = CUPS : If SAMBA is compiled against libcups, then
printcap = cups uses the CUPS API to submit jobs, etc. Otherwise
it maps to the System V commands with the -oraw option for
printing, i.e. it uses lp -c -d%p -oraw; rm %s. With printing =
cups, and if SAMBA is compiled against libcups, any manually set
print command will be ignored.
No default
Example: print command = /usr/local/samba/bin/myprintscript %p
%s
printer admin (S)
This lists users who can do anything to printers via the remote
administration interfaces offered by MS-RPC (usually using a NT
workstation). This parameter can be set per-share or globally.
Note: The root user always has admin rights. Use caution with
use in the global stanza as this can cause side effects.
Default: printer admin =
Example: printer admin = admin, @staff
printer
This parameter is a synonym for printer name.
printer name (S)
This parameter specifies the name of the printer to which print
jobs spooled through a printable service will be sent.
If specified in the [global] section, the printer name given
will be used for any printable service that does not have its
own printer name specified.
Default: printer name = # none (but may be lp on many systems)
Example: printer name = laserwriter
printing (S)
This parameters controls how printer status information is
interpreted on your system. It also affects the default values
for the print command, lpq command, lppause command , lpresume
command, and lprm command if specified in the [global] section.
Currently nine printing styles are supported. They are BSD, AIX,
LPRNG, PLP, SYSV, HPUX, QNX, SOFTQ, and CUPS.
To see what the defaults are for the other print commands when
using the various options use the testparm(1) program.
This option can be set on a per printer basis. Please be aware
however, that you must place any of the various printing com-
mands (e.g. print command, lpq command, etc...) after defining
the value for the printing option since it will reset the print-
ing commands to default values.
See also the discussion in the [printers] section.
No default
private dir (G)
This parameters defines the directory smbd will use for storing
such files as smbpasswd and secrets.tdb.
Default: private dir = ${prefix}/private
profile acls (S)
This boolean parameter was added to fix the problems that people
have been having with storing user profiles on Samba shares from
Windows 2000 or Windows XP clients. New versions of Windows 2000
or Windows XP service packs do security ACL checking on the
owner and ability to write of the profile directory stored on a
local workstation when copied from a Samba share.
When not in domain mode with winbindd then the security info
copied onto the local workstation has no meaning to the logged
in user (SID) on that workstation so the profile storing fails.
Adding this parameter onto a share used for profile storage
changes two things about the returned Windows ACL. Firstly it
changes the owner and group owner of all reported files and
directories to be BUILTIN\\Administrators, BUILTIN\\Users
respectively (SIDs S-1-5-32-544, S-1-5-32-545). Secondly it adds
an ACE entry of "Full Control" to the SID BUILTIN\\Users to
every returned ACL. This will allow any Windows 2000 or XP work-
station user to access the profile.
Note that if you have multiple users logging on to a workstation
then in order to prevent them from being able to access each
others profiles you must remove the "Bypass traverse checking"
advanced user right. This will prevent access to other users
profile directories as the top level profile directory (named
after the user) is created by the workstation profile code and
has an ACL restricting entry to the directory tree to the owning
user.
Default: profile acls = no
queuepause command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the
server host in order to pause the printer queue.
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer
name as its only parameter and stops the printer queue, such
that no longer jobs are submitted to the printer.
This command is not supported by Windows for Workgroups, but can
be issued from the Printers window under Windows 95 and NT.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. Oth-
erwise it is placed at the end of the command.
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in
the command as the PATH may not be available to the server.
No default
Example: queuepause command = disable %p
queueresume command (S)
This parameter specifies the command to be executed on the
server host in order to resume the printer queue. It is the com-
mand to undo the behavior that is caused by the previous parame-
ter ( queuepause command).
This command should be a program or script which takes a printer
name as its only parameter and resumes the printer queue, such
that queued jobs are resubmitted to the printer.
This command is not supported by Windows for Workgroups, but can
be issued from the Printers window under Windows 95 and NT.
If a %p is given then the printer name is put in its place. Oth-
erwise it is placed at the end of the command.
Note that it is good practice to include the absolute path in
the command as the PATH may not be available to the server.
Default: queueresume command =
Example: queueresume command = enable %p
read bmpx (G)
This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will support the
"Read Block Multiplex" SMB. This is now rarely used and defaults
to no. You should never need to set this parameter.
Default: read bmpx = no
read list (S)
This is a list of users that are given read-only access to a
service. If the connecting user is in this list then they will
not be given write access, no matter what the read only option
is set to. The list can include group names using the syntax
described in the invalid users parameter.
This parameter will not work with the security = share in Samba
3.0. This is by design.
Default: read list =
Example: read list = mary, @students
read only (S)
An inverted synonym is writeable.
If this parameter is yes, then users of a service may not create
or modify files in the service's directory.
Note that a printable service (printable = yes) will ALWAYS
allow writing to the directory (user privileges permitting), but
only via spooling operations.
Default: read only = yes
read raw (G)
This parameter controls whether or not the server will support
the raw read SMB requests when transferring data to clients.
If enabled, raw reads allow reads of 65535 bytes in one packet.
This typically provides a major performance benefit.
However, some clients either negotiate the allowable block size
incorrectly or are incapable of supporting larger block sizes,
and for these clients you may need to disable raw reads.
In general this parameter should be viewed as a system tuning
tool and left severely alone.
Default: read raw = yes
realm (G)
This option specifies the kerberos realm to use. The realm is
used as the ADS equivalent of the NT4 domain. It is usually set
to the DNS name of the kerberos server.
Default: realm =
Example: realm = mysambabox.mycompany.com
remote announce (G)
This option allows you to setup nmbd(8)to periodically announce
itself to arbitrary IP addresses with an arbitrary workgroup
name.
This is useful if you want your Samba server to appear in a
remote workgroup for which the normal browse propagation rules
don't work. The remote workgroup can be anywhere that you can
send IP packets to.
For example:
remote announce = 192.168.2.255/SERVERS 192.168.4.255/STAFF
the above line would cause nmbd to announce itself to the two
given IP addresses using the given workgroup names. If you leave
out the workgroup name then the one given in the workgroup
parameter is used instead.
The IP addresses you choose would normally be the broadcast
addresses of the remote networks, but can also be the IP
addresses of known browse masters if your network config is that
stable.
See ???.
Default: remote announce =
remote browse sync (G)
This option allows you to setup nmbd(8) to periodically request
synchronization of browse lists with the master browser of a
Samba server that is on a remote segment. This option will allow
you to gain browse lists for multiple workgroups across routed
networks. This is done in a manner that does not work with any
non-Samba servers.
This is useful if you want your Samba server and all local
clients to appear in a remote workgroup for which the normal
browse propagation rules don't work. The remote workgroup can be
anywhere that you can send IP packets to.
For example:
remote browse sync = 192.168.2.255 192.168.4.255
the above line would cause nmbd to request the master browser on
the specified subnets or addresses to synchronize their browse
lists with the local server.
The IP addresses you choose would normally be the broadcast
addresses of the remote networks, but can also be the IP
addresses of known browse masters if your network config is that
stable. If a machine IP address is given Samba makes NO attempt
to validate that the remote machine is available, is listening,
nor that it is in fact the browse master on its segment.
Default: remote browse sync =
restrict anonymous (G)
The setting of this parameter determines whether user and group
list information is returned for an anonymous connection. and
mirrors the effects of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentCon-
trolSet\Control\LSA\RestrictAnonymous registry key in Windows
2000 and Windows NT. When set to 0, user and group list informa-
tion is returned to anyone who asks. When set to 1, only an
authenticated user can retrive user and group list information.
For the value 2, supported by Windows 2000/XP and Samba, no
anonymous connections are allowed at all. This can break third
party and Microsoft applications which expect to be allowed to
perform operations anonymously.
The security advantage of using restrict anonymous = 1 is dubi-
ous, as user and group list information can be obtained using
other means.
Note
The security advantage of using restrict anonymous = 2 is
removed by setting guest ok = yes on any share.
Default: restrict anonymous = 0
root This parameter is a synonym for root directory.
root dir
This parameter is a synonym for root directory.
root directory (G)
The server will chroot() (i.e. Change its root directory) to
this directory on startup. This is not strictly necessary for
secure operation. Even without it the server will deny access to
files not in one of the service entries. It may also check for,
and deny access to, soft links to other parts of the filesystem,
or attempts to use ".." in file names to access other directo-
ries (depending on the setting of the wide links parameter).
Adding a root directory entry other than "/" adds an extra level
of security, but at a price. It absolutely ensures that no
access is given to files not in the sub-tree specified in the
root directory option, including some files needed for complete
operation of the server. To maintain full operability of the
server you will need to mirror some system files into the root
directory tree. In particular you will need to mirror
/etc/passwd (or a subset of it), and any binaries or configura-
tion files needed for printing (if required). The set of files
that must be mirrored is operating system dependent.
Default: root directory = /
Example: root directory = /homes/smb
root postexec (S)
This is the same as the postexec parameter except that the com-
mand is run as root. This is useful for unmounting filesystems
(such as CDROMs) after a connection is closed.
Default: root postexec =
root preexec (S)
This is the same as the preexec parameter except that the com-
mand is run as root. This is useful for mounting filesystems
(such as CDROMs) when a connection is opened.
Default: root preexec =
root preexec close (S)
This is the same as the preexec close parameter except that the
command is run as root.
Default: root preexec close = no
security (G)
This option affects how clients respond to Samba and is one of
the most important settings in the smb.conf file.
The option sets the "security mode bit" in replies to protocol
negotiations with smbd(8) to turn share level security on or
off. Clients decide based on this bit whether (and how) to
transfer user and password information to the server.
The default is security = user, as this is the most common set-
ting needed when talking to Windows 98 and Windows NT.
The alternatives are security = share, security = server or
security = domain .
In versions of Samba prior to 2.0.0, the default was security =
share mainly because that was the only option at one stage.
There is a bug in WfWg that has relevance to this setting. When
in user or server level security a WfWg client will totally
ignore the password you type in the "connect drive" dialog box.
This makes it very difficult (if not impossible) to connect to a
Samba service as anyone except the user that you are logged into
WfWg as.
If your PCs use usernames that are the same as their usernames
on the UNIX machine then you will want to use security = user.
If you mostly use usernames that don't exist on the UNIX box
then use security = share.
You should also use security = share if you want to mainly setup
shares without a password (guest shares). This is commonly used
for a shared printer server. It is more difficult to setup guest
shares with security = user, see the map to guestparameter for
details.
It is possible to use smbd in a hybrid mode where it is offers
both user and share level security under different NetBIOS
aliases.
The different settings will now be explained.
SECURITY = SHARE
When clients connect to a share level security server they need
not log onto the server with a valid username and password
before attempting to connect to a shared resource (although mod-
ern clients such as Windows 95/98 and Windows NT will send a
logon request with a username but no password when talking to a
security = share server). Instead, the clients send authentica-
tion information (passwords) on a per-share basis, at the time
they attempt to connect to that share.
Note that smbd ALWAYS uses a valid UNIX user to act on behalf
of the client, even in security = share level security.
As clients are not required to send a username to the server in
share level security, smbd uses several techniques to determine
the correct UNIX user to use on behalf of the client.
A list of possible UNIX usernames to match with the given client
password is constructed using the following methods :
o If the guest only parameter is set, then all the other stages
are missed and only the guest account username is checked.
o Is a username is sent with the share connection request, then
this username (after mapping - see username map), is added as
a potential username.
o If the client did a previous logon request (the SessionSetup
SMB call) then the username sent in this SMB will be added as
a potential username.
o The name of the service the client requested is added as a
potential username.
o The NetBIOS name of the client is added to the list as a
potential username.
o Any users on the user list are added as potential usernames.
If the guest only parameter is not set, then this list is then
tried with the supplied password. The first user for whom the
password matches will be used as the UNIX user.
If the guest only parameter is set, or no username can be deter-
mined then if the share is marked as available to the guest
account, then this guest user will be used, otherwise access is
denied.
Note that it can be very confusing in share-level security as to
which UNIX username will eventually be used in granting access.
See also the section NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION.
SECURITY = USER
This is the default security setting in Samba 3.0. With
user-level security a client must first "log-on" with a valid
username and password (which can be mapped using the username
map parameter). Encrypted passwords (see the encrypted passwords
parameter) can also be used in this security mode. Parameters
such as user and guest only if set are then applied and may
change the UNIX user to use on this connection, but only after
the user has been successfully authenticated.
Note that the name of the resource being requested is not sent
to the server until after the server has successfully authenti-
cated the client. This is why guest shares don't work in user
level security without allowing the server to automatically map
unknown users into the guest account. See the map to guest
parameter for details on doing this.
See also the section NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION.
SECURITY = DOMAIN
This mode will only work correctly if net(8) has been used to
add this machine into a Windows NT Domain. It expects the
encrypted passwords parameter to be set to yes. In this mode
Samba will try to validate the username/password by passing it
to a Windows NT Primary or Backup Domain Controller, in exactly
the same way that a Windows NT Server would do.
Note that a valid UNIX user must still exist as well as the
account on the Domain Controller to allow Samba to have a valid
UNIX account to map file access to.
Note that from the client's point of view security = domain is
the same as security = user. It only affects how the server
deals with the authentication, it does not in any way affect
what the client sees.
Note that the name of the resource being requested is not sent
to the server until after the server has successfully authenti-
cated the client. This is why guest shares don't work in user
level security without allowing the server to automatically map
unknown users into the guest account. See the map to guest
parameter for details on doing this.
See also the section NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION.
See also the password server parameter and the encrypted pass-
words parameter.
SECURITY = SERVER
In this mode Samba will try to validate the username/password by
passing it to another SMB server, such as an NT box. If this
fails it will revert to security = user. It expects the
encrypted passwords parameter to be set to yes, unless the
remote server does not support them. However note that if
encrypted passwords have been negotiated then Samba cannot
revert back to checking the UNIX password file, it must have a
valid smbpasswd file to check users against. See the chapter
about the User Database in the Samba HOWTO Collection for
details on how to set this up.
Note
This mode of operation has significant pitfalls, due to the fact
that is activly initiates a man-in-the-middle attack on the
remote SMB server. In particular, this mode of operation can
cause significant resource consuption on the PDC, as it must
maintain an active connection for the duration of the user's
session. Furthermore, if this connection is lost, there is no
way to reestablish it, and futher authenticaions to the Samba
server may fail. (From a single client, till it disconnects).
Note
From the client's point of view security = server is the same as
security = user. It only affects how the server deals with the
authentication, it does not in any way affect what the client
sees.
Note that the name of the resource being requested is not sent to the
server until after the server has successfully authenticated the
client. This is why guest shares don't work in user level security
without allowing the server to automatically map unknown users into the
guest account. See the map to guest parameter for details on doing
this.
See also the section NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION.
See also the password server parameter and the encrypted passwords
parameter.
SECURITY = ADS
In this mode, Samba will act as a domain member in an ADS realm. To
operate in this mode, the machine running Samba will need to have Ker-
beros installed and configured and Samba will need to be joined to the
ADS realm using the net utility.
Note that this mode does NOT make Samba operate as a Active Directory
Domain Controller.
Read the chapter about Domain Membership in the HOWTO for details.
Default: security = USER
Example: security = DOMAIN
security mask (S)
This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modi-
fied when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permis-
sion on a file using the native NT security dialog box.
This parameter is applied as a mask (AND'ed with) to the changed
permission bits, thus preventing any bits not in this mask from
being modified. Essentially, zero bits in this mask may be
treated as a set of bits the user is not allowed to change.
If not set explicitly this parameter is 0777, allowing a user to
modify all the user/group/world permissions on a file.
Note that users who can access the Samba server through other
means can easily bypass this restriction, so it is primarily
useful for standalone "appliance" systems. Administrators of
most normal systems will probably want to leave it set to 0777.
Default: security mask = 0777
Example: security mask = 0770
server schannel (G)
This controls whether the server offers or even demands the use
of the netlogon schannel. server schannel = no does not offer
the schannel, server schannel = auto offers the schannel but
does not enforce it, and server schannel = yes denies access if
the client is not able to speak netlogon schannel. This is only
the case for Windows NT4 before SP4.
Please note that with this set to no you will have to apply the
WindowsXP requireSignOrSeal-Registry patch found in the
docs/Registry subdirectory.
Default: server schannel = auto
Example: server schannel = yes
server signing (G)
This controls whether the server offers or requires the client
it talks to to use SMB signing. Possible values are auto, manda-
tory and disabled.
When set to auto, SMB signing is offered, but not enforced. When
set to mandatory, SMB signing is required and if set to dis-
abled, SMB signing is not offered either.
Default: server signing = Disabled
server string (G)
This controls what string will show up in the printer comment
box in print manager and next to the IPC connection in net view.
It can be any string that you wish to show to your users.
It also sets what will appear in browse lists next to the
machine name.
A %v will be replaced with the Samba version number.
A %h will be replaced with the hostname.
Default: server string = Samba %v
Example: server string = University of GNUs Samba Server
set directory (S)
If set directory = no, then users of the service may not use the
setdir command to change directory.
The setdir command is only implemented in the Digital Pathworks
client. See the Pathworks documentation for details.
Default: set directory = no
set primary group script (G)
Thanks to the Posix subsystem in NT a Windows User has a primary
group in addition to the auxiliary groups. This script sets the
primary group in the unix userdatase when an administrator sets
the primary group from the windows user manager or when fetching
a SAM with net rpc vampire. %u will be replaced with the user
whose primary group is to be set.%g will be replaced with the
group to set.
Default: set primary group script =
Example: set primary group script = /usr/sbin/usermod -g '%g'
'%u'
set quota command (G)
The set quota command should only be used whenever there is no
operating system API available from the OS that samba can use.
This option is only available if Samba was configured with the
argument --with-sys-quotas or on linux when ./configure
--with-quotas was used and a working quota api was found in the
system. Most packages are configured with these options already.
This parameter should specify the path to a script that can set
quota for the specified arguments.
The specified script should take the following arguments:
o 1 - quota type
o 1 - user quotas
o 2 - user default quotas (uid = -1)
o 3 - group quotas
o 4 - group default quotas (gid = -1)
o 2 - id (uid for user, gid for group, -1 if N/A)
o 3 - quota state (0 = disable, 1 = enable, 2 = enable and
enforce)
o 4 - block softlimit
o 5 - block hardlimit
o 6 - inode softlimit
o 7 - inode hardlimit
o 8(optional) - block size, defaults to 1024
The script should output at least one line of data on success.
And nothing on failure.
Default: set quota command =
Example: set quota command = /usr/local/sbin/set_quota
share modes (S)
This enables or disables the honoring of the share modes during
a file open. These modes are used by clients to gain exclusive
read or write access to a file.
These open modes are not directly supported by UNIX, so they are
simulated using shared memory, or lock files if your UNIX
doesn't support shared memory (almost all do).
The share modes that are enabled by this option areDENY_DOS,
DENY_ALL,DENY_READ, DENY_WRITE,DENY_NONE and DENY_FCB.
This option gives full share compatibility and enabled by
default.
You should NEVER turn this parameter off as many Windows appli-
cations will break if you do so.
Default: share modes = yes
short preserve case (S)
This boolean parameter controls if new files which conform to
8.3 syntax, that is all in upper case and of suitable length,
are created upper case, or if they are forced to be the default
case . This option can be use with preserve case = yes to permit
long filenames to retain their case, while short names are low-
ered.
See the section on NAME MANGLING.
Default: short preserve case = yes
show add printer wizard (G)
With the introduction of MS-RPC based printing support for Win-
dows NT/2000 client in Samba 2.2, a "Printers..." folder will
appear on Samba hosts in the share listing. Normally this folder
will contain an icon for the MS Add Printer Wizard (APW). How-
ever, it is possible to disable this feature regardless of the
level of privilege of the connected user.
Under normal circumstances, the Windows NT/2000 client will open
a handle on the printer server with OpenPrinterEx() asking for
Administrator privileges. If the user does not have administra-
tive access on the print server (i.e is not root or a member of
the printer admin group), the OpenPrinterEx() call fails and the
client makes another open call with a request for a lower privi-
lege level. This should succeed, however the APW icon will not
be displayed.
Disabling the show add printer wizard parameter will always
cause the OpenPrinterEx() on the server to fail. Thus the APW
icon will never be displayed.
Note
This does not prevent the same user from having administrative
privilege on an individual printer.
Default: show add printer wizard = yes
shutdown script (G)
This a full path name to a script called bysmbd(8) that should
start a shutdown procedure.
If the connected user posseses the SeRemoteShutdownPrivilege,
right, this command will be run as user.
The %z %t %r %f variables are expanded as follows:
o %z will be substituted with the shutdown message sent to the
server.
o %t will be substituted with the number of seconds to wait
before effectively starting the shutdown procedure.
o %r will be substituted with the switch -r. It means reboot
after shutdown for NT.
o %f will be substituted with the switch -f. It means force the
shutdown even if applications do not respond for NT.
Shutdown script example:
#!/bin/bash
$time=0
let "time/60"
let "time++"
/sbin/shutdown $3 $4 +$time $1 &
Shutdown does not return so we need to launch it in background.
Default: shutdown script =
Example: shutdown script = /usr/local/samba/sbin/shutdown %m %t
%r %f
smb passwd file (G)
This option sets the path to the encrypted smbpasswd file. By
default the path to the smbpasswd file is compiled into Samba.
Default: smb passwd file = ${prefix}/private/smbpasswd
Example: smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
smb ports (G)
Specifies which ports the server should listen on for SMB traf-
fic.
Default: smb ports = 445 139
socket address (G)
This option allows you to control what address Samba will listen
for connections on. This is used to support multiple virtual
interfaces on the one server, each with a different configura-
tion.
By default Samba will accept connections on any address.
Default: socket address =
Example: socket address = 192.168.2.20
socket options (G)
This option allows you to set socket options to be used when
talking with the client.
Socket options are controls on the networking layer of the oper-
ating systems which allow the connection to be tuned.
This option will typically be used to tune your Samba server for
optimal performance for your local network. There is no way that
Samba can know what the optimal parameters are for your net, so
you must experiment and choose them yourself. We strongly sug-
gest you read the appropriate documentation for your operating
system first (perhaps man setsockopt will help).
You may find that on some systems Samba will say "Unknown socket
option" when you supply an option. This means you either incor-
rectly typed it or you need to add an include file to includes.h
for your OS. If the latter is the case please send the patch to
samba-technical@samba.org.
Any of the supported socket options may be combined in any way
you like, as long as your OS allows it.
This is the list of socket options currently settable using this
option:
o SO_KEEPALIVE
o SO_REUSEADDR
o SO_BROADCAST
o TCP_NODELAY
o IPTOS_LOWDELAY
o IPTOS_THROUGHPUT
o SO_SNDBUF *
o SO_RCVBUF *
o SO_SNDLOWAT *
o SO_RCVLOWAT *
Those marked with a '*' take an integer argument. The others can
optionally take a 1 or 0 argument to enable or disable the
option, by default they will be enabled if you don't specify 1
or 0.
To specify an argument use the syntax SOME_OPTION = VALUE for
example SO_SNDBUF = 8192. Note that you must not have any spaces
before or after the = sign.
If you are on a local network then a sensible option might be:
socket options = IPTOS_LOWDELAY
If you have a local network then you could try:
socket options = IPTOS_LOWDELAY TCP_NODELAY
If you are on a wide area network then perhaps try setting
IPTOS_THROUGHPUT.
Note that several of the options may cause your Samba server to
fail completely. Use these options with caution!
Default: socket options = TCP_NODELAY
Example: socket options = IPTOS_LOWDELAY
stat cache (G)
This parameter determines if smbd(8) will use a cache in order
to speed up case insensitive name mappings. You should never
need to change this parameter.
Default: stat cache = yes
store dos attributes (S)
If this parameter is set Samba no longer attempts to map DOS
attributes like SYSTEM, HIDDEN, ARCHIVE or READ-ONLY to UNIX
permission bits (such as the map hidden. Instead, DOS attributes
will be stored onto an extended attribute in the UNIX filesys-
tem, associated with the file or directory. For this to operate
correctly, the parameters map hidden, map system, map archive
must be set to off. This parameter writes the DOS attributes as
a string into the extended attribute named "user.DOSATTRIB".
This extended attribute is explicitly hidden from smbd clients
requesting an EA list. On Linux the filesystem must have been
mounted with the mount option user_xattr in order for extended
attributes to work, also extended attributes must be compiled
into the Linux kernel.
Default: store dos attributes = no
strict allocate (S)
This is a boolean that controls the handling of disk space allo-
cation in the server. When this is set to yes the server will
change from UNIX behaviour of not committing real disk storage
blocks when a file is extended to the Windows behaviour of actu-
ally forcing the disk system to allocate real storage blocks
when a file is created or extended to be a given size. In UNIX
terminology this means that Samba will stop creating sparse
files. This can be slow on some systems.
When strict allocate is no the server does sparse disk block
allocation when a file is extended.
Setting this to yes can help Samba return out of quota messages
on systems that are restricting the disk quota of users.
Default: strict allocate = no
strict locking (S)
This is a boolean that controls the handling of file locking in
the server. When this is set to yes, the server will check every
read and write access for file locks, and deny access if locks
exist. This can be slow on some systems.
When strict locking is disabled, the server performs file lock
checks only when the client explicitly asks for them.
Well-behaved clients always ask for lock checks when it is
important. So in the vast majority of cases, strict locking = no
is acceptable.
Default: strict locking = yes
strict sync (S)
Many Windows applications (including the Windows 98 explorer
shell) seem to confuse flushing buffer contents to disk with
doing a sync to disk. Under UNIX, a sync call forces the process
to be suspended until the kernel has ensured that all outstand-
ing data in kernel disk buffers has been safely stored onto sta-
ble storage. This is very slow and should only be done rarely.
Setting this parameter to no (the default) means that smbd(8)
ignores the Windows applications requests for a sync call. There
is only a possibility of losing data if the operating system
itself that Samba is running on crashes, so there is little dan-
ger in this default setting. In addition, this fixes many per-
formance problems that people have reported with the new Win-
dows98 explorer shell file copies.
Default: strict sync = no
sync always (S)
This is a boolean parameter that controls whether writes will
always be written to stable storage before the write call
returns. If this is no then the server will be guided by the
client's request in each write call (clients can set a bit indi-
cating that a particular write should be synchronous). If this
is yes then every write will be followed by a fsync() call to
ensure the data is written to disk. Note that the strict sync
parameter must be set to yes in order for this parameter to have
any affect.
Default: sync always = no
syslog (G)
This parameter maps how Samba debug messages are logged onto the
system syslog logging levels. Samba debug level zero maps onto
syslog LOG_ERR, debug level one maps onto LOG_WARNING, debug
level two maps onto LOG_NOTICE, debug level three maps onto
LOG_INFO. All higher levels are mapped to LOG_DEBUG.
This parameter sets the threshold for sending messages to sys-
log. Only messages with debug level less than this value will be
sent to syslog.
Default: syslog = 1
syslog only (G)
If this parameter is set then Samba debug messages are logged
into the system syslog only, and not to the debug log files.
Default: syslog only = no
template homedir (G)
When filling out the user information for a Windows NT user, the
winbindd(8) daemon uses this parameter to fill in the home
directory for that user. If the string %D is present it is sub-
stituted with the user's Windows NT domain name. If the string
%U is present it is substituted with the user's Windows NT user
name.
Default: template homedir = /home/%D/%U
template primary group (G)
This option defines the default primary group for each user cre-
ated by winbindd(8)'s local account management functions (simi-
lar to the 'add user script').
Default: template primary group = nobody
template shell (G)
When filling out the user information for a Windows NT user, the
winbindd(8) daemon uses this parameter to fill in the login
shell for that user.
No default
time offset (G)
This parameter is a setting in minutes to add to the normal GMT
to local time conversion. This is useful if you are serving a
lot of PCs that have incorrect daylight saving time handling.
Default: time offset = 0
Example: time offset = 60
time server (G)
This parameter determines if nmbd(8) advertises itself as a time
server to Windows clients.
Default: time server = no
unix charset (G)
Specifies the charset the unix machine Samba runs on uses. Samba
needs to know this in order to be able to convert text to the
charsets other SMB clients use.
This is also the charset Samba will use when specifying argu-
ments to scripts that it invokes.
Default: unix charset = UTF8
Example: unix charset = ASCII
unix extensions (G)
This boolean parameter controls whether Samba implments the CIFS
UNIX extensions, as defined by HP. These extensions enable Samba
to better serve UNIX CIFS clients by supporting features such as
symbolic links, hard links, etc... These extensions require a
similarly enabled client, and are of no current use to Windows
clients.
Default: unix extensions = yes
unix password sync (G)
This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to syn-
chronize the UNIX password with the SMB password when the
encrypted SMB password in the smbpasswd file is changed. If this
is set to yes the program specified in the passwd programparame-
ter is called AS ROOT - to allow the new UNIX password to be set
without access to the old UNIX password (as the SMB password
change code has no access to the old password cleartext, only
the new).
Default: unix password sync = no
update encrypted (G)
This boolean parameter allows a user logging on with a plaintext
password to have their encrypted (hashed) password in the smb-
passwd file to be updated automatically as they log on. This
option allows a site to migrate from plaintext password authen-
tication (users authenticate with plaintext password over the
wire, and are checked against a UNIX account database) to
encrypted password authentication (the SMB challenge/response
authentication mechanism) without forcing all users to re-enter
their passwords via smbpasswd at the time the change is made.
This is a convenience option to allow the change over to
encrypted passwords to be made over a longer period. Once all
users have encrypted representations of their passwords in the
smbpasswd file this parameter should be set to no.
In order for this parameter to work correctly the encrypt pass-
words parameter must be set to no when this parameter is set to
yes.
Note that even when this parameter is set a user authenticating
to smbd must still enter a valid password in order to connect
correctly, and to update their hashed (smbpasswd) passwords.
Default: update encrypted = no
use client driver (S)
This parameter applies only to Windows NT/2000 clients. It has
no effect on Windows 95/98/ME clients. When serving a printer to
Windows NT/2000 clients without first installing a valid printer
driver on the Samba host, the client will be required to install
a local printer driver. From this point on, the client will
treat the print as a local printer and not a network printer
connection. This is much the same behavior that will occur when
disable spoolss = yes.
The differentiating factor is that under normal circumstances,
the NT/2000 client will attempt to open the network printer
using MS-RPC. The problem is that because the client considers
the printer to be local, it will attempt to issue the OpenPrint-
erEx() call requesting access rights associated with the logged
on user. If the user possesses local administator rights but not
root privilegde on the Samba host (often the case), the Open-
PrinterEx() call will fail. The result is that the client will
now display an "Access Denied; Unable to connect" message in the
printer queue window (even though jobs may successfully be
printed).
If this parameter is enabled for a printer, then any attempt to
open the printer with the PRINTER_ACCESS_ADMINISTER right is
mapped to PRINTER_ACCESS_USE instead. Thus allowing the Open-
PrinterEx() call to succeed. This parameter MUST not be able
enabled on a print share which has valid print driver installed
on the Samba server.
Default: use client driver = no
use kerberos keytab (G)
Specifies whether Samba should attempt to maintain service prin-
cipals in the systems keytab file for host/FQDN and cifs/FQDN.
When you are using the heimdal Kerberos libraries, you must also
specify the following in /etc/krb5.conf:
[libdefaults]
default_keytab_name = FILE:/etc/krb5.keytab
Default: use kerberos keytab = False
use mmap (G)
This global parameter determines if the tdb internals of Samba
can depend on mmap working correctly on the running system.
Samba requires a coherent mmap/read-write system memory cache.
Currently only HPUX does not have such a coherent cache, and so
this parameter is set to no by default on HPUX. On all other
systems this parameter should be left alone. This parameter is
provided to help the Samba developers track down problems with
the tdb internal code.
Default: use mmap = yes
user This parameter is a synonym for username.
users This parameter is a synonym for username.
username (S)
Multiple users may be specified in a comma-delimited list, in
which case the supplied password will be tested against each
username in turn (left to right).
The username line is needed only when the PC is unable to supply
its own username. This is the case for the COREPLUS protocol or
where your users have different WfWg usernames to UNIX user-
names. In both these cases you may also be better using the
\\server\share%user syntax instead.
The username line is not a great solution in many cases as it
means Samba will try to validate the supplied password against
each of the usernames in the username line in turn. This is slow
and a bad idea for lots of users in case of duplicate passwords.
You may get timeouts or security breaches using this parameter
unwisely.
Samba relies on the underlying UNIX security. This parameter
does not restrict who can login, it just offers hints to the
Samba server as to what usernames might correspond to the sup-
plied password. Users can login as whoever they please and they
will be able to do no more damage than if they started a telnet
session. The daemon runs as the user that they log in as, so
they cannot do anything that user cannot do.
To restrict a service to a particular set of users you can use
the valid users parameter.
If any of the usernames begin with a '@' then the name will be
looked up first in the NIS netgroups list (if Samba is compiled
with netgroup support), followed by a lookup in the UNIX groups
database and will expand to a list of all users in the group of
that name.
If any of the usernames begin with a '+' then the name will be
looked up only in the UNIX groups database and will expand to a
list of all users in the group of that name.
If any of the usernames begin with a '&' then the name will be
looked up only in the NIS netgroups database (if Samba is com-
piled with netgroup support) and will expand to a list of all
users in the netgroup group of that name.
Note that searching though a groups database can take quite some
time, and some clients may time out during the search.
See the section NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION for more
information on how this parameter determines access to the ser-
vices.
Default: username = # The guest account if a guest service, else
<empty string>.
Example: username = fred, mary, jack, jane, @users, @pcgroup
username level (G)
This option helps Samba to try and 'guess' at the real UNIX
username, as many DOS clients send an all-uppercase username. By
default Samba tries all lowercase, followed by the username with
the first letter capitalized, and fails if the username is not
found on the UNIX machine.
If this parameter is set to non-zero the behavior changes. This
parameter is a number that specifies the number of uppercase
combinations to try while trying to determine the UNIX user
name. The higher the number the more combinations will be tried,
but the slower the discovery of usernames will be. Use this
parameter when you have strange usernames on your UNIX machine,
such as AstrangeUser .
This parameter is needed only on UNIX systems that have case
sensitive usernames.
Default: username level = 0
Example: username level = 5
username map (G)
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 user-
name 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 net-
group 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 user-
names. 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 modi-
fication.
Also note that no reverse mapping is done. The main effect this
has is with printing. Users who have been mapped may have trou-
ble deleting print jobs as PrintManager under WfWg will think
they don't own the print job.
Samba versions prior to 3.0.8 would only support reading the
fully qualified username (e.g.: DOMAIN\user) from the username
map when performing a kerberos login from a client. However,
when looking up a map entry for a user authenticated by
NTLM[SSP], only the login name would be used for matches. This
resulted in inconsistent behavior sometimes even on the same
server.
The following functionality is obeyed in version 3.0.8 and
later:
When performing local authentication, the username map is
applied to the login name before attempting to authenticate the
connection.
When relying upon a external domain controller for validating
authentication requests, smbd will apply the username map to the
fully qualified username (i.e. DOMAIN\user) only after the user
has been successfully authenticated.
Default: username map = # no username map
Example: username map = /usr/local/samba/lib/users.map
use sendfile (S)
If this parameter is yes, and the sendfile() system call is sup-
ported by the underlying operating system, then some SMB read
calls (mainly ReadAndX and ReadRaw) will use the more efficient
sendfile system call for files that are exclusively oplocked.
This may make more efficient use of the system CPU's and cause
Samba to be faster. Samba automatically turns this off for
clients that use protocol levels lower than NT LM 0.12 and when
it detects a client is Windows 9x (using sendfile from Linux
will cause these clients to fail).
Default: use sendfile = yes
use spnego (G)
This variable controls controls whether samba will try to use
Simple and Protected NEGOciation (as specified by rfc2478) with
WindowsXP and Windows2000 clients to agree upon an authentica-
tion mechanism.
Unless further issues are discovered with our SPNEGO implementa-
tion, there is no reason this should ever be disabled.
Default: use spnego = yes
utmp (G)
This boolean parameter is only available if Samba has been con-
figured and compiled with the option --with-utmp. If set to yes
then Samba will attempt to add utmp or utmpx records (depending
on the UNIX system) whenever a connection is made to a Samba
server. Sites may use this to record the user connecting to a
Samba share.
Due to the requirements of the utmp record, we are required to
create a unique identifier for the incoming user. Enabling this
option creates an n^2 algorithm to find this number. This may
impede performance on large installations.
Default: utmp = no
utmp directory (G)
This parameter is only available if Samba has been configured
and compiled with the option --with-utmp. It specifies a direc-
tory pathname that is used to store the utmp or utmpx files
(depending on the UNIX system) that record user connections to a
Samba server. By default this is not set, meaning the system
will use whatever utmp file the native system is set to use
(usually/var/run/utmp on Linux).
Default: utmp directory = # Determined automatically
Example: utmp directory = /var/run/utmp
-valid (S)
This parameter indicates whether a share is valid and thus can
be used. When this parameter is set to false, the share will be
in no way visible nor accessible.
This option should not be used by regular users but might be of
help to developers. Samba uses this option internally to mark
shares as deleted.
Default: -valid = yes
valid users (S)
This is a list of users that should be allowed to login to this
service. Names starting with '@', '+' and '&' are interpreted
using the same rules as described in the invalid users parame-
ter.
If this is empty (the default) then any user can login. If a
username is in both this list and the invalid users list then
access is denied for that user.
The current servicename is substituted for %S . This is useful
in the [homes] section.
Default: valid users = # No valid users list (anyone can login)
Example: valid users = greg, @pcusers
veto files (S)
This is a list of files and directories that are neither visible
nor accessible. Each entry in the list must be separated by a
'/', which allows spaces to be included in the entry. '*' and
'?' can be used to specify multiple files or directories as in
DOS wildcards.
Each entry must be a unix path, not a DOS path and must not
include the unix directory separator '/'.
Note that the case sensitive option is applicable in vetoing
files.
One feature of the veto files parameter that it is important to
be aware of is Samba's behaviour when trying to delete a direc-
tory. If a directory that is to be deleted contains nothing but
veto files this deletion will fail unless you also set the
delete veto files parameter toyes.
Setting this parameter will affect the performance of Samba, as
it will be forced to check all files and directories for a match
as they are scanned.
Default: veto files = # No files or directories are vetoed.
Example: veto files = ; Veto any files containing the word Secu-
rity, ; any ending in .tmp, and any directory containing the ;
word root. veto files = /*Security*/*.tmp/*root*/ ; Veto the
Apple specific files that a NetAtalk server ; creates. veto
files = /.AppleDouble/.bin/.AppleDesktop/Network Trash Folder/
veto oplock files (S)
This parameter is only valid when the oplocks parameter is
turned on for a share. It allows the Samba administrator to
selectively turn off the granting of oplocks on selected files
that match a wildcarded list, similar to the wildcarded list
used in theveto files parameter.
You might want to do this on files that you know will be heavily
contended for by clients. A good example of this is in the Net-
Bench SMB benchmark program, which causes heavy client con-
tention for files ending in .SEM. To cause Samba not to grant
oplocks on these files you would use the line (either in the
[global] section or in the section for the particular NetBench
share :
Default: veto oplock files = # No files are vetoed for oplock
grants
Example: veto oplock files = /.*SEM/
vfs object
This parameter is a synonym for vfs objects.
vfs objects (S)
This parameter specifies the backend names which are used for
Samba VFS I/O operations. By default, normal disk I/O operations
are used but these can be overloaded with one or more VFS
objects.
Default: vfs objects =
Example: vfs objects = extd_audit recycle
volume (S)
This allows you to override the volume label returned for a
share. Useful for CDROMs with installation programs that insist
on a particular volume label.
Default: volume = # the name of the share
wide links (S)
This parameter controls whether or not links in the UNIX file
system may be followed by the server. Links that point to areas
within the directory tree exported by the server are always
allowed; this parameter controls access only to areas that are
outside the directory tree being exported.
Note that setting this parameter can have a negative effect on
your server performance due to the extra system calls that Samba
has to do in order to perform the link checks.
Default: wide links = yes
winbind cache time (G)
This parameter specifies the number of seconds the winbindd(8)
daemon will cache user and group information before querying a
Windows NT server again.
Note
This does not apply to authentication requests, these are always
evaluated in real time.
Default: winbind cache time = 300
winbind enable local accounts (G)
This parameter controls whether or not winbindd will act as a
stand in replacement for the various account management hooks in
smb.conf (e.g. 'add user script'). If enabled, winbindd will
support the creation of local users and groups as another source
of UNIX account information available via getpwnam() or get-
grgid(), etc...
Default: winbind enable local accounts = no
winbind enum groups (G)
On large installations using winbindd(8) it may be necessary to
suppress the enumeration of groups through the setgrent(),get-
grent() andendgrent() group of system calls. If the winbind enum
groups parameter isno, calls to the getgrent() system call will
not return any data.
Warning
Turning off group enumeration may cause some programs to behave
oddly.
Default: winbind enum groups = yes
winbind enum users (G)
On large installations using winbindd(8) it may be necessary to
suppress the enumeration of users through the setpwent(),getp-
went() andendpwent() group of system calls. If the winbind enum
users parameter isno, calls to the getpwent system call will not
return any data.
Warning
Turning off user enumeration may cause some programs to behave
oddly. For example, the finger program relies on having access
to the full user list when searching for matching usernames.
Default: winbind enum users = yes
winbind nested groups (G)
If set to yes, this parameter activates the support for nested
groups. Nested groups are also called local groups or aliases.
They work like their counterparts in Windows: Nested groups are
defined locally on any machine (they are shared between DC's
through their SAM) and can contain users and global groups from
any trusted SAM. To be able to use nested groups, you need to
run nss_winbind.
Please note that per 3.0.3 this is a new feature, so handle with
care.
Default: winbind nested groups = no
winbind separator (G)
This parameter allows an admin to define the character used when
listing a username of the form of DOMAIN \user. This parameter
is only applicable when using the pam_winbind.so and nss_win-
bind.so modules for UNIX services.
Please note that setting this parameter to + causes problems
with group membership at least on glibc systems, as the charac-
ter + is used as a special character for NIS in /etc/group.
Default: winbind separator = '\'
Example: winbind separator = +
winbind trusted domains only (G)
This parameter is designed to allow Samba servers that are mem-
bers of a Samba controlled domain to use UNIX accounts distrib-
uted via NIS, rsync, or LDAP as the uid's for winbindd users in
the hosts primary domain. Therefore, the user DOMAIN\user1 would
be mapped to the account user1 in /etc/passwd instead of allo-
cating a new uid for him or her.
Default: winbind trusted domains only = no
winbind use default domain (G)
This parameter specifies whether thewinbindd(8) daemon should
operate on users without domain component in their username.
Users without a domain component are treated as is part of the
winbindd server's own domain. While this does not benifit Win-
dows users, it makes SSH, FTP and e-mail function in a way much
closer to the way they would in a native unix system.
Default: winbind use default domain = no
Example: winbind use default domain = yes
wins hook (G)
When Samba is running as a WINS server this allows you to call
an external program for all changes to the WINS database. The
primary use for this option is to allow the dynamic update of
external name resolution databases such as dynamic DNS.
The wins hook parameter specifies the name of a script or exe-
cutable that will be called as follows:
wins_hook operation name nametype ttl IP_list
o The first argument is the operation and is one of "add",
"delete", or "refresh". In most cases the operation can be
ignored as the rest of the parameters provide sufficient
information. Note that "refresh" may sometimes be called when
the name has not previously been added, in that case it
should be treated as an add.
o The second argument is the NetBIOS name. If the name is not a
legal name then the wins hook is not called. Legal names con-
tain only letters, digits, hyphens, underscores and periods.
o The third argument is the NetBIOS name type as a 2 digit
hexadecimal number.
o The fourth argument is the TTL (time to live) for the name in
seconds.
o The fifth and subsequent arguments are the IP addresses cur-
rently registered for that name. If this list is empty then
the name should be deleted.
An example script that calls the BIND dynamic DNS update program
nsupdate is provided in the examples directory of the Samba
source code.
No default
wins proxy (G)
This is a boolean that controls if nmbd(8) will respond to
broadcast name queries on behalf of other hosts. You may need to
set this to yes for some older clients.
Default: wins proxy = no
wins server (G)
This specifies the IP address (or DNS name: IP address for pref-
erence) of the WINS server that nmbd(8) should register with. If
you have a WINS server on your network then you should set this
to the WINS server's IP.
You should point this at your WINS server if you have a
multi-subnetted network.
If you want to work in multiple namespaces, you can give every
wins server a 'tag'. For each tag, only one (working) server
will be queried for a name. The tag should be separated from the
ip address by a colon.
Note
You need to set up Samba to point to a WINS server if you have
multiple subnets and wish cross-subnet browsing to work cor-
rectly.
See the ???.
Default: wins server =
Example: wins server = mary:192.9.200.1 fred:192.168.3.199
mary:192.168.2.61 # For this example when querying a certain name,
192.19.200.1 will be asked first and if that doesn't respond
192.168.2.61. If either of those doesn't know the name 192.168.3.199
will be queried.
Example: wins server = 192.9.200.1 192.168.2.61
wins support (G)
This boolean controls if the nmbd(8) process in Samba will act
as a WINS server. You should not set this to yes unless you have
a multi-subnetted network and you wish a particular nmbd to be
your WINS server. Note that you should NEVER set this to yes on
more than one machine in your network.
Default: wins support = no
workgroup (G)
This controls what workgroup your server will appear to be in
when queried by clients. Note that this parameter also controls
the Domain name used with the security = domain setting.
Default: workgroup = WORKGROUP
Example: workgroup = MYGROUP
writable
This parameter is a synonym for writeable.
writeable (S)
Inverted synonym for read only.
No default
write cache size (S)
If this integer parameter is set to non-zero value, Samba will
create an in-memory cache for each oplocked file (it does not do
this for non-oplocked files). All writes that the client does
not request to be flushed directly to disk will be stored in
this cache if possible. The cache is flushed onto disk when a
write comes in whose offset would not fit into the cache or when
the file is closed by the client. Reads for the file are also
served from this cache if the data is stored within it.
This cache allows Samba to batch client writes into a more effi-
cient write size for RAID disks (i.e. writes may be tuned to be
the RAID stripe size) and can improve performance on systems
where the disk subsystem is a bottleneck but there is free mem-
ory for userspace programs.
The integer parameter specifies the size of this cache (per
oplocked file) in bytes.
Default: write cache size = 0
Example: write cache size = 262144 # for a 256k cache size per
file
write list (S)
This is a list of users that are given read-write access to a
service. If the connecting user is in this list then they will
be given write access, no matter what the read only option is
set to. The list can include group names using the @group syn-
tax.
Note that if a user is in both the read list and the write list
then they will be given write access.
This parameter will not work with the security = share in Samba
3.0. This is by design.
Default: write list =
Example: write list = admin, root, @staff
write raw (G)
This parameter controls whether or not the server will support
raw write SMB's when transferring data from clients. You should
never need to change this parameter.
Default: write raw = yes
wtmp directory (G)
This parameter is only available if Samba has been configured
and compiled with the option --with-utmp. It specifies a direc-
tory pathname that is used to store the wtmp or wtmpx files
(depending on the UNIX system) that record user connections to a
Samba server. The difference with the utmp directory is the fact
that user info is kept after a user has logged out.
By default this is not set, meaning the system will use whatever
utmp file the native system is set to use (usually/var/run/wtmp
on Linux).
Default: wtmp directory =
Example: wtmp directory = /var/log/wtmp
WARNINGS
Although the configuration file permits service names to contain spa-
ces, your client software may not. Spaces will be ignored in compar-
isons anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem - but be aware of the possi-
bility.
On a similar note, many clients - especially DOS clients - limit ser-
vice names to eight characters. smbd(8) has no such limitation, but
attempts to connect from such clients will fail if they truncate the
service names. For this reason you should probably keep your service
names down to eight characters in length.
Use of the [homes] and [printers] special sections make life for an
administrator easy, but the various combinations of default attributes
can be tricky. Take extreme care when designing these sections. In par-
ticular, ensure that the permissions on spool directories are correct.
VERSION
This man page is correct for version 3.0 of the Samba suite.
SEE ALSO
samba(7), smbpasswd(8), swat(8), smbd(8), nmbd(8), smbclient(1),
nmblookup(1), testparm(1), testprns(1).
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 Doc-
Book XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy.
SMB.CONF(5)
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