smbpasswd
change a user´s SMB password
Synopsis
smbpasswd [-a]
[-c <config file>] [-x]
[-d] [-e] [-D debuglevel] [-n]
[-r <remote machine>]
[-R <name resolve order>]
[-m] [-U username[%password]] [-h]
[-s] [-w pass] [-W] [-i]
[-L] [username]
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description
This tool is
part of the samba(7) suite.
The smbpasswd
program has several different functions, depending on
whether it is run by the root user or not. When run
as a normal user it allows the user to change the password
used for their SMB sessions on any machines that store SMB
passwords.
By default
(when run with no arguments) it will attempt to change the
current user´s SMB password on the local machine. This
is similar to the way the passwd(1) program works. smbpasswd
differs from how the passwd program works however in that it
is not setuid root but works in a client-server
mode and communicates with a locally running smbd(8).
As a consequence in order for this to succeed the smbd
daemon must be running on the local machine. On a UNIX
machine the encrypted SMB 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.
options
-a
This option specifies that the
username following should be added to the local smbpasswd
file, with the new password typed (type <Enter> for
the old password). This option is ignored if the username
following already exists in the smbpasswd file and it is
treated like a regular change password command. Note that
the default passdb backends require the user to already
exist in the system password file (usually /etc/passwd),
else the request to add the user will fail.
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-c
This option can be used to
specify the path and file name of the smb.conf configuration
file when it is important to use other than the default file
and / or location.
-x
This option specifies that the
username following should be deleted from the local
smbpasswd file.
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-d
This option specifies that the
username following should be disabled in the local
smbpasswd file. This is done by writing a
´D´ flag into the account control space
in the smbpasswd file. Once this is done all attempts to
authenticate via SMB using this username will fail.
If the
smbpasswd file is in the ´old´ format
(pre-Samba 2.0 format) there is no space in the
user´s password entry to write this information and
the command will FAIL. See smbpasswd(5) for details
on the ´old´ and new password file formats.
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-e
This option specifies that the
username following should be enabled in the local
smbpasswd file, if the account was previously disabled. If
the account was not disabled this option has no effect. Once
the account is enabled then the user will be able to
authenticate via SMB once again.
If the
smbpasswd file is in the ´old´ format, then
smbpasswd will FAIL to enable the account. See
smbpasswd(5) for details on the ´old´ and
new password file formats.
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-D
debuglevel
debuglevel is an integer
from 0 to 10. The default value if this parameter is not
specified is zero.
The higher this
value, the more detail will be logged to the log files about
the activities of smbpasswd. At level 0, only 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.
-n
This option specifies that the
username following should have their password set to null
(i.e. a blank password) in the local smbpasswd file. This is
done by writing the string "NO PASSWORD" as the
first part of the first password stored in the smbpasswd
file.
Note that to
allow users to logon to a Samba server once the password has
been set to "NO PASSWORD" in the smbpasswd file
the administrator must set the following parameter in the
[global] section of the smb.conf file :
null passwords
= yes
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-r remote
machine name
This option allows a user to
specify what machine they wish to change their password on.
Without this parameter smbpasswd defaults to the local host.
The remote machine name is the NetBIOS name of the
SMB/CIFS server to contact to attempt the password change.
This name is resolved into an IP address using the standard
name resolution mechanism in all programs of the Samba
suite. See the -R name resolve order parameter
for details on changing this resolving mechanism.
The username
whose password is changed is that of the current UNIX logged
on user. See the -U username parameter for
details on changing the password for a different
username.
Note that if
changing a Windows NT Domain password the remote machine
specified must be the Primary Domain Controller for the
domain (Backup Domain Controllers only have a
read-only copy of the user account database and will
not allow the password change).
Note
that Windows 95/98 do not have a real password database so
it is not possible to change passwords specifying a Win95/98
machine as remote machine target.
-R name
resolve order
This option allows the user of
smbpasswd to determine what name resolution services to use
when looking up the NetBIOS name of the host being connected
to.
The options are
:"lmhosts", "host", "wins" and
"bcast". They cause names to be resolved as
follows:
•
lmhosts: Lookup an IP address in the Samba lmhosts
file. If the line in lmhosts has no name type attached to
the NetBIOS name (see the lmhosts(5) for details)
then any name type matches for lookup.
•
host: Do a standard host name to IP address
resolution, using the system /etc/hosts, NIS, or DNS
lookups. This method of name resolution is operating system
depended for instance on IRIX or Solaris this may be
controlled by the /etc/nsswitch.conf file). Note that this
method is only used if the NetBIOS name type being queried
is the 0x20 (server) name type, otherwise it is ignored.
•
wins: Query a name with the IP address listed in the
wins server parameter. If no WINS server has been
specified this method will be ignored.
•
bcast: Do a broadcast on each of the known local
interfaces listed in the interfaces parameter. This
is the least reliable of the name resolution methods as it
depends on the target host being on a locally connected
subnet.
The default
order is lmhosts, host, wins, bcast and without this
parameter or any entry in the smb.conf(5) file the
name resolution methods will be attempted in this order.
-m
This option tells smbpasswd
that the account being changed is a MACHINE account.
Currently this is used when Samba is being used as an NT
Primary Domain Controller.
This option is
only available when running smbpasswd as root.
-U
username
This option may only be used in
conjunction with the -r option. When changing a
password on a remote machine it allows the user to specify
the user name on that machine whose password will be
changed. It is present to allow users who have different
user names on different systems to change these
passwords.
-h
This option prints the help
string for smbpasswd, selecting the correct one for running
as root or as an ordinary user.
-s
This option causes smbpasswd to
be silent (i.e. not issue prompts) and to read its old and
new passwords from standard input, rather than from /dev/tty
(like the passwd(1) program does). This option is to aid
people writing scripts to drive smbpasswd
-w
password
This parameter is only
available if Samba has been compiled with LDAP support. The
-w switch is used to specify the password to be
used with the ldap admin
dn. Note that the password
is stored in the secrets.tdb and is keyed off of the
admin´s DN. This means that if the value of ldap
admin dn ever changes, the password will need to be
manually updated as well.
-W
NOTE:
This option is same as "-w" except that the
password should be entered using stdin.
This
parameter is only available if Samba has been compiled with
LDAP support. The -W switch is used to specify
the password to be used with the
ldap admin
dn. Note that the password
is stored in the secrets.tdb and is keyed off of the
admin´s DN. This means that if the value of ldap
admin dn ever changes, the password will need to be
manually updated as well.
-i
This
option tells smbpasswd that the account being changed is an
interdomain trust account. Currently this is used when Samba
is being used as an NT Primary Domain Controller. The
account contains the info about another trusted
domain.
This
option is only available when running smbpasswd as
root.
-L
Run in
local mode.
username
This
specifies the username for all of the root only
options to operate on. Only root can specify this parameter
as only root has the permission needed to modify attributes
directly in the local smbpasswd file.
notes
Since smbpasswd works in client-server mode
communicating with a local smbd for a non-root user then the smbd
daemon must be running for this to work. A common problem is to
add a restriction to the hosts that may access the smbd running
on the local machine by specifying either allow hosts or
deny hosts entry in the smb.conf(5) file and
neglecting to allow "localhost" access to the smbd.
In addition, the smbpasswd command is only
useful if Samba has been set up to use encrypted
passwords.
version
This man page is correct for version 3 of
the Samba suite.
see also
smbpasswd,
Samba.
author
The
original Samba software and related utilities were created
by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team
as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux
kernel is developed.
The
original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man
page sources were converted to YODL format (another
excellent piece of Open Source software, available at
ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba
2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion to DocBook for
Samba 2.2 was done by Gerald Carter. The conversion to
DocBook XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander
Bokovoy.