smbpasswd [-a] [-d] [-e] [-D debug level] [-n] [-r remote_machine] [-R name resolve order] [-m] [-j DOMAIN] [-U username] [-h] [-s] username
This program is part of the Samba suite.
The smbpasswd program has several different functions, depending on whether it is run by the root user or not. When run as a normal user it allows the user to change the password used for their SMB sessions on any machines that store SMB passwords.
By default (when run with no arguments) it will attempt to change the current users SMB password on the local machine. This is similar to the way the passwd (1) program works. smbpasswd differs from how the passwd program works however in that it is not setuid root but works in a client-server mode and communicates with a locally running smbd. As a consequence in order for this to succeed the smbd daemon must be running on the local machine. On a UNIX machine the encrypted SMB passwords are usually stored in the smbpasswd (5) file.
When run by an ordinary user with no options. smbpasswd will prompt them for their old smb password and then ask them for their new password twice, to ensure that the new password was typed correctly. No passwords will be echoed on the screen whilst being typed. If you have a blank smb password (specified by the string "NO PASSWORD" in the smbpasswd file) then just press the <Enter> key when asked for your old password.
smbpasswd can also be used by a normal user to change their SMB password on remote machines, such as Windows NT Primary Domain Controllers. See the (-r) and -U options below.
When run by root, smbpasswd allows new users to be added and deleted in the smbpasswd file, as well as allows changes to the attributes of the user in this file to be made. When run by root, smbpasswd accesses the local smbpasswd file directly, thus enabling changes to be made even if smbd is not running.
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
If the smbpasswd file is in the 'old' format (pre-Samba 2.0 format) there is no space in the users password entry to write this information and so the user is disabled by writing 'X' characters into the password space in the smbpasswd file. See smbpasswd (5) for details on the 'old' and new password file formats.
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
If the smbpasswd file is in the 'old' format then smbpasswd will prompt for a new password for this user, otherwise the account will be enabled by removing the 'D' flag from account control space in the smbpasswd file. See smbpasswd (5) for details on the 'old' and new password file formats.
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
The higher this value, the more detail will be logged to the log files about the activities of smbpasswd. At level 0, only critical errors and serious warnings will be logged.
Levels above 1 will generate considerable amounts of log data, and should only be used when investigating a problem. Levels above 3 are designed for use only by developers and generate HUGE amounts of log data, most of which is extremely cryptic.
Note that to allow users to logon to a Samba server once the password has been set to "NO PASSWORD" in the smbpasswd file the administrator must set the following parameter in the [global] section of the smb.conf file :
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
The username whose password is changed is that of the current UNIX logged on user. See the -U username parameter for details on changing the password for a different username.
Note that if changing a Windows NT Domain password the remote machine specified must be the Primary Domain Controller for the domain (Backup Domain Controllers only have a read-only copy of the user account database and will not allow the password change).
Note that Windows 95/98 do not have a real password database so it is not possible to change passwords specifying a Win95/98 machine as remote machine target.
The options are :"lmhosts", "host", "wins" and "bcast". They cause names to be resolved as follows :
If this parameter is not set then the name resolve order defined in the smb.conf file parameter name resolve order will be used.
The default order is lmhosts, host, wins, bcast and without this parameter or any entry in the smb.conf file the name resolution methods will be attempted in this order.
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
In order to be used in this way, the Administrator for the Windows NT Domain must have used the program "Server Manager for Domains" to add the primary NetBIOS name of the Samba server as a member of the Domain.
After this has been done, to join the Domain invoke smbpasswd with
this parameter. smbpasswd will then look up the Primary Domain
Controller for the Domain (found in the
smb.conf file in the parameter
password server and change
the machine account password used to create the secure Domain
communication. This password is then stored by smbpasswd in a
file, read only by root, called <Domain>.<Machine>.mac where
<Domain> is the name of the Domain we are joining and <Machine>
is the primary NetBIOS name of the machine we are running on.
Once this operation has been performed the smb.conf file may be updated to set the security=domain option and all future logins to the Samba server will be authenticated to the Windows NT PDC.
Note that even though the authentication is being done to the PDC all users accessing the Samba server must still have a valid UNIX account on that machine.
This option is only available when running smbpasswd as root.
/dev/tty (like the passwd (1) program
does). This option is to aid people writing scripts to drive smbpasswd
Since smbpasswd works in client-server mode communicating with a local smbd for a non-root user then the smbd daemon must be running for this to work. A common problem is to add a restriction to the hosts that may access the smbd running on the local machine by specifying a "allow hosts" or "deny hosts" entry in the smb.conf file and neglecting to allow "localhost" access to the smbd.
In addition, the smbpasswd command is only useful if Samba has been set up to use encrypted passwords. See the file ENCRYPTION.txt in the docs directory for details on how to do this.
This man page is correct for version 2.0 of the Samba suite.
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell samba-bugs@samba.org. 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 Samba2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. samba-bugs@samba.org.
See samba (7) to find out how to get a full list of contributors and details on how to submit bug reports, comments etc.