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

This boolean parameter controls what smbd(8)does on receiving a protocol request of "open for delete" from a Windows client. If a Windows client doesn't have permissions to delete a file then they expect this to be denied at open time. POSIX systems normally only detect restrictions on delete by actually attempting to delete the file or directory. As Windows clients can (and do) "back out" a delete request by unsetting the "delete on close" bit Samba cannot delete the file immediately on "open for delete" request as we cannot restore such a deleted file. With this parameter set to true (the default) then smbd checks the file system permissions directly on "open for delete" and denies the request without actually deleting the file if the file system permissions would seem to deny it. This is not perfect, as it's possible a user could have deleted a file without Samba being able to check the permissions correctly, but it is close enough to Windows semantics for mostly correct behaviour. Samba will correctly check POSIX ACL semantics in this case.

If this parameter is set to "false" Samba doesn't check permissions on "open for delete" and allows the open. If the user doesn't have permission to delete the file this will only be discovered at close time, which is too late for the Windows user tools to display an error message to the user. The symptom of this is files that appear to have been deleted "magically" re-appearing on a Windows explorer refersh. This is an extremely advanced protocol option which should not need to be changed. This parameter was introduced in its final form in 3.0.21, an earlier version with slightly different semantics was introduced in 3.0.20. That older version is not documented here.

Default: acl check permissions = True

This parameter specifies what OS ACL semantics should be compatible 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

In a POSIX filesystem, only the owner of a file or directory and the superuser can modify the permissions and ACLs on a file. If this parameter is set, then Samba overrides this restriction, and also allows the primary group owner of a file or directory to modify the permissions and ACLs on that file.

On a Windows server, groups may be the owner of a file or directory - thus allowing anyone in that group to modify the permissions on it. This allows the delegation of security controls on a point in the filesystem to the group owner of a directory and anything below it also owned by that group. This means there are multiple people with permissions to modify ACLs on a file or directory, easing managability.

This parameter allows Samba to also permit delegation of the control over a point in the exported directory hierarchy in much the same way as Windows. This allows all members of a UNIX group to control the permissions on a file or directory they have group ownership on.

This parameter is best used with the inherit owner option and also on on a share containing directories with the UNIX setgid bit set on them, which causes new files and directories created within it to inherit the group ownership from the containing directory.

This is parameter has been marked deprecated in Samba 3.0.23. The same behavior is now implemented by the dos filemode option.

Default: acl group control = no

This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8)maps a POSIX ACE entry of "rwx" (read/write/execute), the maximum allowed POSIX permission set, into a Windows ACL of "FULL CONTROL". If this parameter is set to true any POSIX ACE entry of "rwx" will be returned in a Windows ACL as "FULL CONTROL", is this parameter is set to false any POSIX ACE entry of "rwx" will be returned as the specific Windows ACL bits representing read, write and execute.

Default: acl map full control = True

This is the full pathname to a script that will be run AS 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 installations using the Windows NT domain administration tools. The script is free to create a group with an arbitrary name to circumvent unix group name restrictions. In that case the script must print the numeric gid of the created group on stdout.

Default: add group script =

Example: add group script = /usr/sbin/groupadd %g

This is the full pathname to a script that will be run by smbd(8) when a machine is added to Samba's domain and a Unix account matching the machine's name appended with a "$" does not already exist.

This option is very similar to the add user script, and likewise uses the %u substitution for the account name. Do not use the %m substitution.

Default: add machine script =

Example: add machine script = /usr/sbin/adduser -n -g machines -c Machine -d /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %u

Samba 3.0.23 introduced support for adding printer ports remotely using the Windows "Add Standard TCP/IP Port Wizard". This option defines an external program to be executed when smbd receives a request to add a new Port to the system. The script is passed two parameters:

The deviceURI is in the for of socket://<hostname>[:<portnumber>] or lpd://<hostname>/<queuename>.

Default: add port command =

Example: add port command = /etc/samba/scripts/addport.sh

With the introduction of MS-RPC based printing support for Windows 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 following parameter (in order):

All parameters are filled in from the PRINTER_INFO_2 structure sent by the Windows NT/2000 client with one exception. The "Windows 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 connected to. If this line isn't output, Samba won't reload its printer shares.

Default: add printer command =

Example: add printer command = /usr/bin/addprinter

Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. The add share command is used to define an external program or script which will add a new service definition to smb.conf. In order to successfully execute the add share command, smbd requires that the administrator be connected using a root account (i.e. uid == 0).

If the connected account has SeDiskOperatorPrivilege, scripts defined in change share parameter are executed as root.

When executed, smbd will automatically invoke the add share command with five parameters.

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

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 creating 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 users ON 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 Windows 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

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

This is a list of users who will be granted administrative privileges on the share. This means that they will do all file operations 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, irrespective 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

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 special AFS features include the attempt to hand-craft an AFS token if you enabled --with-fake-kaserver in configure.

Default: afs share = no

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

If Samba has been built with asynchronous I/O support and this integer parameter is set to non-zero value, Samba will read from file asynchronously when size of request is bigger than this value. Note that it happens only for non-chained and non-chaining reads and when not using write cache.

Current implementation of asynchronous I/O in Samba 3.0 does support only up to 10 outstanding asynchronous requests, read and write combined.

Related command: write cache size

Related command: aio write size

Default: aio read size = 0

Example: aio read size = 16384 # Use asynchronous I/O for reads bigger than 16KB request size

If Samba has been built with asynchronous I/O support and this integer parameter is set to non-zero value, Samba will write to file asynchronously when size of request is bigger than this value. Note that it happens only for non-chained and non-chaining reads and when not using write cache.

Current implementation of asynchronous I/O in Samba 3.0 does support only up to 10 outstanding asynchronous requests, read and write combined.

Related command: write cache size

Related command: aio read size

Default: aio write size = 0

Example: aio write size = 16384 # Use asynchronous I/O for writes bigger than 16KB request size

This determines how Samba will use its algorithmic mapping from uids/gid to the RIDs needed to construct NT Security Identifiers.

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 arbitrary-rid supporting backends.

Default: algorithmic rid base = 1000

Example: algorithmic rid base = 100000

This parameter allows an administrator to tune the allocation size reported to Windows clients. The default size of 1Mb generally 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 parameter 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)

This option only takes effect when the security option is set to server, domain or ads. 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 example, 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

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 appearing as an NT server as this may prevent Samba servers from participating as browser servers correctly.

Default: announce as = NT Server

Example: announce as = Win95

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

This option allows the administrator to chose what authentication 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

This parameter lets you "turn off" a service. If available = no, then ALL attempts to connect to the service will fail. Such failures are logged.

Default: available = yes

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 broadcast 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 allows nmbd to refuse to serve names to machines that send packets that arrive through any interfaces not listed in the interfaces list. IP Source address spoofing does defeat this simple check, however, 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 networks that smbd will serve to packets coming in those interfaces. Note that you should not use this parameter for machines that are serving PPP or other intermittent or non-broadcast network interfaces as it will not cope with non-permanent interfaces.

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 connects to the localhost - 127.0.0.1 address as an SMB client to issue the password change request. If bind interfaces only is set then unless the network address 127.0.0.1 is added to the interfaces 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 with smbd and nmbd at the address 127.0.0.1 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 starting/stopping/restarting smbd and nmbd.

Default: bind interfaces only = no

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 previous versions of Samba would and will fail the lock request immediately if the lock range cannot be obtained.

Default: blocking locks = yes

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 performance without re-compiling the code. As this is an experimental 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.

Default: block size = 1024

Example: block size = 4096

This parameter is a synonym for browseable.

This controls whether this share is seen in the list of available shares in a net view and in the browse list.

Default: browseable = yes

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

This parameter is a synonym for case sensitive.

See the discussion in the section name mangling.

Default: case sensitive = no

This parameter specifies whether Samba should reply to a client's file change notify requests.

You should never need to change this parameter

Default: change notify = yes

Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. The change 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).

If the connected account has SeDiskOperatorPrivilege, scripts defined in change share parameter are executed as root.

When executed, smbd will automatically invoke the change share command with five parameters.

This parameter is only used modify existing file shares definitions. 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

The name of a program that can be used to check password complexity. The password is sent to the program's standrad input.

The program must return 0 on good password any other value otherwise. 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

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 connected 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

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 disables 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 practice' security polices) only allow NTLMv2 responses, and not the weaker LM or NTLM.

Default: client ntlmv2 auth = no

Specifies whether a client should send a plaintext password if the server does not support encrypted passwords.

Default: client plaintext auth = yes

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

This controls whether the client offers or requires the server it talks to to use SMB signing. Possible values are auto, mandatory 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 disabled, SMB signing is not offered either.

Default: client signing = auto

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

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 smbnet 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

This allows you to override the config file to use, instead of the default (usually smb.conf). There is a chicken and egg problem 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 (allowing you to special case the config files of just a few clients).

No default

Example: config file = /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.%m

This parameter allows you to "clone" service entries. The specified service is simply duplicated under the current service's name. Any parameters specified in the current section will override 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

This parameter is a synonym for create mask.

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 masks. See the parameter directory mask 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

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, disable.

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

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. Multiple parameters should be space-delimited name/value pairs according to the PAPI text option ABNF specification. Collection values ("name={a=... b=... c=...}") are stored with the curley brackets intact.

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"

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.

Optionally, a port can be specified by separating the server name and port number with a colon. If no port was specified, the default port for IPP (631) will be used.

Default: cups server = ""

Example: cups server = mycupsserver

Example: cups server = mycupsserver:1631

The value of the parameter (a decimal integer) represents the number of minutes of inactivity before a connection is considered 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 recommended for most systems.

A deadtime of zero indicates that no auto-disconnection should be performed.

Default: deadtime = 0

Example: deadtime = 15

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

When using only one log file for more then one forked smbd(8)-process there may be hard to follow which process outputs 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

With this option enabled, the timestamp message header is prefixed to the debug message without the filename and function information that is included with the debug timestamp parameter. This gives timestamps to the messages without adding an additional line.

Note that this parameter overrides the debug timestamp parameter.

Default: debug prefix timestamp = no

This parameter is a synonym for debug timestamp.

Samba debug log messages are timestamped by default. If you are running at a high debug level these timestamps can be distracting. This boolean parameter allows timestamping to be turned off.

Default: debug timestamp = yes

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

See the section on name mangling. Also note the short preserve case parameter.

Default: default case = lower

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 = yes

This parameter is a synonym for default service.

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

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, allowing 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

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 =

With the introduction of MS-RPC based printer support for Windows 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 command 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

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

Samba 2.2.0 introduced the ability to dynamically add and delete shares via the Windows NT 4.0 Server Manager. The delete 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).

If the connected account has SeDiskOperatorPrivilege, scripts defined in change share parameter are executed as root.

When executed, smbd will automatically invoke the delete share command with two parameters.

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

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

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' or rpcclient.

This script should delete the given UNIX username.

Default: delete user script =

Example: delete user script = /usr/local/samba/bin/del_user %u

This option is used when Samba is attempting to delete a directory 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 recursively delete any files and directories within the vetoed directory. This can be useful for integration with file serving systems 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

The dfree cache time 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 is a new parameter introduced in Samba version 3.0.21. It specifies in seconds the time that smbd will cache the output of a disk free query. If set to zero (the default) no caching is done. This allows a heavily loaded server to prevent rapid spawning of dfree command scripts increasing the load.

By default this parameter is zero, meaning no caching will be done.

No default

Example: dfree cache time = dfree cache time = 60

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.

In Samba version 3.0.21 this parameter has been changed to be a per-share parameter, and in addition the parameter dfree cache time was added to allow the output of this script to be cached for systems under heavy load.

The external program will be passed a single parameter indicating a directory in the filesystem being queried. This will typically 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 $(NF-4),$(NF-2)}'

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.

By default internal routines for determining the disk capacity and remaining space will be used.

No default

Example: dfree command = /usr/local/samba/bin/dfree

This parameter is a synonym for directory mask.

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 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 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

This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits will be set when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permission on a directory using the native NT security dialog box.

This parameter is applied as a mask (AND'ed with) to the incoming permission bits, thus resetting any bits not in this mask. Make sure not to mix up this parameter with force directory security mode, which works similar like this one but uses logical OR instead of AND. Essentially, zero bits in this mask are a set of bits that will always be set to zero.

Essentially, all bits set to zero in this mask will result in setting to zero the corresponding bits on the file permissions regardless of the previous status of this bits on the file.

If not set explicitly this parameter is set to 0777 meaning a user is allowed to set 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

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.

Default: disable netbios = no

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 unaffected 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 window. 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

Specifies the charset that samba will use to print messages to stdout and stderr. The default value is "LOCALE", which means automatically set, depending on the current locale. The value should generally be the same as the value of the parameter unix charset.

Default: display charset = "LOCALE" or "ASCII" (depending on the system)

Example: display charset = UTF8

This parameter specifies whether Samba should use DMAPI to determine whether a file is offline or not. This would typically be used in conjunction with a hierarchical storage system that automatically migrates files to tape.

Note that Samba infers the status of a file by examining the events that a DMAPI application has registered interest in. This heuristic is satisfactory for a number of hierarchical storage systems, but there may be system for which it will fail. In this case, Samba may erroneously report files to be offline.

This parameter is only available if a supported DMAPI implementation was found at compilation time. It will only be used if DMAPI is found to enabled on the system at run time.

Default: dmapi support = no

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 characters, 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

If set to yes, the Samba server will provide the netlogon service for Windows 9X network logons for the workgroup it is in. This will also cause the Samba server to act as a domain controller for NT4 style domain services. For more details on setting up this feature see the Domain Control chapter of the Samba HOWTO Collection.

Default: domain logons = no

Tell smbd(8) to enable WAN-wide browse list collation. Setting this option causes nmbd to claim a special domain specific NetBIOS 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 Windows 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.

When domain logons = Yes the default setting for this parameter is Yes, with the result that Samba will be a PDC. If domain master = No, Samba will function as a BDC. In general, this parameter should be set to 'No' only on a BDC.

Default: domain master = auto

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 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 system.

No default

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 permissions (including ACL) 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 may also be changed.

Default: dos filemode = no

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 nearest two second boundary when a query call that requires one second 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 granularity. 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 timestamps to match, and Visual C++ is happy.

Default: dos filetime resolution = no

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 timestamp 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. Due to changes in Microsoft Office 2000 and beyond, the default for this parameter has been changed from "no" to "yes" in Samba 3.0.14 and above. Microsoft Excel will display dialog box warnings about the file being changed by another user if this parameter is not set to "yes" and files are being shared between users.

Default: dos filetimes = yes

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 filesystem 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

Hosts running the "Advanced Server for Unix (ASU)" product require some special accomodations such as creating a builting [ADMIN$] share that only supports IPC connections. The has been the default behavior in smbd for many years. However, certain Microsoft applications such as the Print Migrator tool require that the remote server support an [ADMIN$} file share. Disabling this parameter allows for creating an [ADMIN$] file share in smb.conf.

Default: enable asu support = no

This parameter controls whether or not smbd will honor privileges assigned to specific SIDs via either smbnet rpc rights or one of the Windows user and group manager tools. This parameter is enabled by default. It can be disabled 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 HOWTO documentation.

Default: enable privileges = yes

This boolean controls whether encrypted passwords will be negotiated 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 Collection.

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 encrypted password 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 passwords for user accounts.

The use of plain text passwords is NOT advised as support for this feature is no longer maintained in Microsoft Windows products. 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 smbpasswd(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

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 regular 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 randomised 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

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

This option defines a list of log names that Samba will report to the Microsoft EventViewer utility. The listed eventlogs will be associated with tdb file on disk in the $(lockdir)/eventlog.

The administrator must use an external process to parse the normal Unix logs such as /var/log/messages and write then entries to the eventlog tdb files. Refer to the eventlogadm(8) utility for how to write eventlog entries.

Default: eventlog list =

Example: eventlog list = Security Application Syslog Apache

NTFS and Windows VFAT file systems keep a create time for all files and directories. This is not the same as the ctime - status 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 makefiles 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 directory'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

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 aggressively 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 performance 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

This parameter allows the Samba administrator to stop smbd(8) from following symbolic links in a particular share. Setting 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

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

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

This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modified when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permission 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. Make sure not to mix up this parameter with directory security mask, which works in a similar manner to this one, but uses a logical AND instead of an OR.

Essentially, this mask may be treated as a set of bits that, when modifying security on a directory, to will enable (1) any flags that are off (0) but which the mask has set to on (1).

If not set explicitly this parameter is 0000, which allows a user to modify all the user/group/world permissions on a directory without restrictions.

Default: force directory security mode = 0

Example: force directory security mode = 700

This parameter is a synonym for force group.

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 administrator can restrict or allow sharing of these files.

In Samba 2.0.5 and above this parameter has extended functionality 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 ownership set to that group. This gives a finer granularity of ownership 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

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 Windows 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

This parameter controls what UNIX permission bits can be modified when a Windows NT client is manipulating the UNIX permission 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. Make sure not to mix up this parameter with security mask, which works similar like this one but uses logical AND instead of OR.

Essentially, one bits in this mask may be treated as a set of bits that, when modifying security 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

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 currently 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

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 performed 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

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

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-quotas. 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 partition that the specified directory is on.

Such a script should take 3 arguments:

The type of query can be one of :

This script should print one line as output with spaces between the arguments. The arguments are:

Default: get quota command =

Example: get quota command = /usr/local/sbin/query_quota

This is a tuning option. When this is enabled a caching algorithm will be used to reduce the time taken for getwd() calls. This can have a significant impact on performance, especially when the wide smbconfoptions parameter is set to no.

Default: getwd cache = yes

This is a username which will be used for access to services which are specified as guest ok (see below). Whatever privileges 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 operation.

Default: guest account = nobody # default can be changed at compile-time

Example: guest account = ftp

This parameter is a synonym for guest ok.

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 anonymous = 2

See the section below on security for more information about this option.

Default: guest ok = no

This parameter is a synonym for guest only.

If this parameter is yes for a service, then only guest connections 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

This is a boolean parameter that controls whether files starting with a dot appear as hidden files.

Default: hide dot files = yes

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.

The example shown above 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.

An example of us of this parameter is:

hide files = /.*/DesktopFolderDB/TrashFor%m/resource.frk/

Default: hide files = # no file are hidden

This parameter prevents clients from seeing special files such as sockets, devices and fifo's in directory listings.

Default: hide special files = no

This parameter prevents clients from seeing the existance of files that cannot be read. Defaults to off.

Default: hide unreadable = no

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

If nis 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 automounter) maps.

Default: homedir map =

Example: homedir map = amd.homedir

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 information on setting up a Dfs tree on Samba, refer to the MSFDS chapter in the book Samba3-HOWTO.

Default: host msdfs = yes

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

This parameter is a synonym for hosts allow.

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 netgroup names if your system supports netgroups. The EXCEPT keyword 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

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

This parameter is a synonym for hosts deny.

The opposite of hosts allow - hosts listed here are NOT permitted access to services unless the specific services have their own lists to override this one. Where the lists conflict, the allow list takes precedence.

In the event that it is necessary to deny all by default, use the keyword ALL (or the netmask 0.0.0.0/0) and then explicitly specify to the hosts allow = hosts allow parameter those hosts that should be permitted access.

Default: hosts deny = # none (i.e., no hosts specifically excluded)

Example: hosts deny = 150.203.4. badhost.mynet.edu.au

The idmap alloc backend provides a plugin interface for Winbind to use when allocating Unix uids/gids for Windows SIDs. This option is to be used in conjunction with the idmap domains parameter and refers to the name of the idmap module which will provide the id allocation functionality. Please refer to the man page for each idmap plugin to determine whether or not the module implements the allocation feature. The most common plugins are the tdb (idmap_tdb(8)) and ldap (idmap_ldap(8)) libraries.

Also refer to the idmap alloc config option.

No default

Example: idmap alloc backend = tdb

The idmap alloc config prefix provides a means of managing settings for the backend defined by the idmap alloc backend parameter. Refer to the man page for each idmap plugin regarding specific configuration details.

No default

The idmap backend provides a plugin interface for Winbind to use varying backends to store SID/uid/gid mapping tables. This option is mutually exclusive with the newer and more flexible idmap domains parameter. The main difference between the "idmap backend" and the "idmap domains" is that the former only allows on backend for all domains while the latter supports configuring backends on a per domain basis.

Examples of SID/uid/gid backends include tdb (idmap_tdb(8)), ldap (idmap_ldap(8)), rid (idmap_rid(8)), and ad (idmap_tdb(8)).

Default: idmap backend = tdb

This parameter specifies the number of seconds that Winbind's idmap interface will cache positive SID/uid/gid query results.

Default: idmap cache time = 900

The idmap config prefix provides a means of managing each domain defined by the idmap domains option using Samba's parameteric option support. The idmap config prefix should be followed by the name of the domain, a colon, and a setting specific to the chosen backend. There are three options available for all domains:

The following example illustrates how to configure the idmap_ad(8) for the CORP domain and the idmap_tdb(8) backend for all other domains. The TRUSTEDDOMAINS string is simply a key used to reference the "idmap config" settings and does not represent the actual name of a domain.

	idmap domains = CORP TRUSTEDDOMAINS

	idmap config CORP:backend  = ad
	idmap config CORP:readonly = yes

	idmap config TRUSTEDDOMAINS:backend = tdb
	idmap config TRUSTEDDOMAINS:default = yes
	idmap config TRUSTEDDOMAINS:range   = 1000 - 9999
	

No default

The idmap domains option defines a list of Windows domains which will each have a separately configured backend for managing Winbind's SID/uid/gid tables. This parameter is mutually exclusive with the older idmap backend option.

Values consist of the short domain name for Winbind's primary or collection of trusted domains. You may also use an arbitrary string to represent a catchall domain backend for any domain not explicitly listed.

Refer to the idmap config for details about managing the SID/uid/gid backend for each domain.

No default

Example: idmap domains = default AD CORP

This parameter is a synonym for idmap gid.

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.

See also the idmap backend, idmap domains, and idmap config options.

Default: idmap gid =

Example: idmap gid = 10000-20000

This parameter specifies the number of seconds that Winbind's idmap interface will cache negative SID/uid/gid query results.

Default: idmap negative cache time = 120

This parameter is a synonym for idmap uid.

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.

See also the idmap backend, idmap domains, and idmap config options.

Default: idmap uid =

Example: idmap uid = 10000-20000

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

This parameter can be used to ensure that if default acls exist on parent directories, they are always honored when creating a new file or subdirectory in these parent directories. The default behavior is to use the unix mode specified when creating the directory. Enabling this option sets the unix mode to 0777, thus guaranteeing that default directory acls are propagated.

Default: inherit acls = no

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 implementing 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

The permissions on new files and directories are normally governed by create mask, directory mask, force create mode and force directory mode but the boolean inherit permissions parameter 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 directory. Their execute bits continue to be determined by map archive, 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

This option allows you to override the default network interfaces 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:

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 normal hostname resolution mechanisms.

By default Samba enables all active interfaces that are broadcast capable except the loopback adaptor (IP address 127.0.0.1).

The example below configures 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.

Default: interfaces =

Example: interfaces = eth0 192.168.2.10/24 192.168.3.10/255.255.255.0

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 via the NSS getgrnam() interface. 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

This parameter is only applicable if printing is set to iprint.

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: iprint server = ""

Example: iprint server = MYCUPSSERVER

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 has the SO_KEEPALIVE attribute set on it by default. (see socket options). Basically you should only use this option if you strike difficulties.

Default: keepalive = 300

Example: keepalive = 600

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 inotify interface.

Default: kernel change notify = yes

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 whenever 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

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 password hashes (e.g. Windows NT/2000 clients, smbclient, but not Windows 95/98 or the MS DOS network client) will be able to connect 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 disable this option.

Unlike the encrypt 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

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 redirector 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

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 accomplish this.

The ldap admin dn requires a fully specified DN. The ldap suffix is not appended to the ldap admin dn.

No default

This parameter specifies whether a delete operation in the ldapsam deletes the complete entry or only the attributes specific to Samba.

Default: ldap delete dn = no

This parameter 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. The suffix string is pre-pended to the ldap suffix string so use a partial DN.

Default: ldap group suffix =

Example: ldap group suffix = ou=Groups

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. The suffix string is pre-pended to the ldap suffix string so use a partial DN.

Default: ldap idmap suffix =

Example: ldap idmap suffix = ou=Idmap

It specifies where machines should be added to the ldap tree. If this parameter is unset, the value of ldap suffix will be used instead. The suffix string is pre-pended to the ldap suffix string so use a partial DN.

Default: ldap machine suffix =

Example: ldap machine suffix = ou=Computers

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:

Default: ldap passwd sync = no

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

Editposix is an option that leverages ldapsam:trusted to make it simpler to manage a domain controller eliminating the need to set up custom scripts to add and manage the posix users and groups. This option will instead directly manipulate the ldap tree to create, remove and modify user and group entries. This option also requires a running winbindd as it is used to allocate new uids/gids on user/group creation. The allocation range must be therefore configured.

To use this option, a basic ldap tree must be provided and the ldap suffix parameters must be properly configured. On virgin servers the default users and groups (Administrator, Guest, Domain Users, Domain Admins, Domain Guests) can be precreated with the command smbnet sam provision. To run this command the ldap server must be running, Winindd must be running and the smb.conf ldap options must be properly configured. The typical ldap setup used with the ldapsam:trusted = yes option is usually sufficient to use ldapsam:editposix = yes as well.

An example configuration can be the following:

	encrypt passwords = true
	passdb backend = ldapsam

	ldapsam:trusted=yes
	ldapsam:editposix=yes

	ldap admin dn = cn=admin,dc=samba,dc=org
	ldap delete dn = yes
	ldap group suffix = ou=groups
	ldap idmap suffix = ou=idmap
	ldap machine suffix = ou=computers
	ldap user suffix = ou=users
	ldap suffix = dc=samba,dc=org

	idmap backend = ldap:"ldap://localhost"

	idmap uid = 5000-50000
	idmap gid = 5000-50000
	

This configuration assume the ldap server have been loaded with a base tree like described in the following ldif:

	dn: dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: top
	objectClass: dcObject
	objectClass: organization
	o: samba.org
	dc: samba

	dn: cn=admin,dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: simpleSecurityObject
	objectClass: organizationalRole
	cn: admin
	description: LDAP administrator
	userPassword: secret

	dn: ou=users,dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: top
	objectClass: organizationalUnit
	ou: users

	dn: ou=groups,dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: top
	objectClass: organizationalUnit
	ou: groups

	dn: ou=idmap,dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: top
	objectClass: organizationalUnit
	ou: idmap

	dn: ou=computers,dc=samba,dc=org
	objectClass: top
	objectClass: organizationalUnit
	ou: computers
	

Default: ldapsam:editposix = no

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 inefficiencies. 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 counterparts in LDAP. UNIX has optimized functions to enumerate group membership. Sadly, other functions that are used to deal with user and group attributes lack such optimization.

To make Samba scale well in large environments, the ldapsam: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 attributes. It further assumes that the Samba auxiliary object classes are stored together with the POSIX data in the same LDAP object. If these assumptions are met, ldapsam:trusted = yes can be activated and Samba can bypass the NSS system to query user group memberships. Optimized LDAP queries can greatly speed up domain logon and administration tasks. Depending on the size of the LDAP database a factor of 100 or more for common queries is easily achieved.

Default: ldapsam:trusted = no

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:

Default: ldap ssl = start_tls

Specifies the base for all ldap suffixes and for storing the sambaDomain object.

The ldap suffix will be appended to the values specified for the ldap user suffix, ldap group suffix, ldap machine suffix, and the ldap idmap suffix. Each of these should be given only a DN relative to the ldap suffix.

Default: ldap suffix =

Example: ldap suffix = dc=samba,dc=org

When Samba connects to an ldap server that servermay 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

This parameter specifies where users are added to the tree. If this parameter is unset, the value of ldap suffix will be used instead. The suffix string is pre-pended to the ldap suffix string so use a partial DN.

Default: ldap user suffix =

Example: ldap user suffix = ou=people

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

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 parameter can have three values, yes, no, or auto. 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 frequency set by the parameter lm 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 parameter lm interval.

Default: lm announce = auto

Example: lm announce = yes

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

A boolean variable that controls whether all printers in the printcap will be loaded for browsing by default. See the printers section for more details.

Default: load printers = yes

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 to yes doesn't mean that Samba will become the local master browser on a subnet, just that nmbd will participate 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

This parameter is a synonym for lock directory.

This option specifies the directory where lock files will be placed. The lock files are used to implement the max connections option.

Default: lock directory = ${prefix}/var/locks

Example: lock directory = /var/run/samba/locks

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 question 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 specific service, as lack of locking may result in data corruption. You should never need to set this parameter.

No default

This parameter has been made inoperative in Samba 3.0.24. The functionality it contolled is now controlled by the parameter lock spin time.

Default: lock spin count = 0

The time in microseconds that smbd should keep waiting to see if a failed lock request can be granted. This parameter has changed in default value from Samba 3.0.23 from 10 to 200. The associated lock spin count parameter is no longer used in Samba 3.0.24. You should not need to change the value of this parameter.

Default: lock spin time = 200

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

This parameter is a synonym for log level.

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 allows to specify the debug level for multiple debug classes. This is to give greater flexibility in the configuration of the system. The following debug classes are currently implemented:

Default: log level = 0

Example: log level = 3 passdb:5 auth:10 winbind:2

This parameter specifies the local path to which the home directory 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 =

Example: logon drive = h:

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 NetUserGetInfo request. Win9X clients truncate the info to \\server\share when a user does smbnet use /home but use the whole string when dealing with profiles.

Note that in prior versions of Samba, the logon path was returned rather than logon home. This broke smbnet use /home but allowed profiles outside the home directory. The current implementation is correct, and can be used for profiles if you use the above trick.

Disable this feature by setting logon home = "" - using the empty string.

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

This parameter specifies the directory where roaming profiles (Desktop, NTuser.dat, etc) 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. Therefore, it is vital that the logon path does not include a reference to the homes share (i.e. setting this parameter to \\%N\homes\profile_path will cause problems).

This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you to have separate logon scripts for each user or machine.

Note that this option is only useful if Samba is set up as a domain controller.

Disable the use of roaming profiles by setting the value of this parameter to the empty string. For example, logon path = "". Take note that even if the default setting in the smb.conf file is the empty string, any value specified in the user account settings in the passdb backend will over-ride the effect of setting this parameter to null. Disabling of all roaming profile use requires that the user account settings must also be blank.

An example of use is:

logon path = \\PROFILESERVER\PROFILE\%U

Default: logon path = \\%N\%U\profile

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/netlogon, 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 suggested 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

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

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

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 different lpq 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 30 seconds, meaning that the cached results of a previous identical lpq command will be used if the cached data is less than 30 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 = 30

Example: lpq cache time = 10

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

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

No default

Example: lpresume command = /usr/bin/lpalt %p-%j -p2

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.

Examples of use are:

lprm command = /usr/bin/lprm -P%p %j

or

lprm command = /usr/bin/cancel %p-%j

Default: lprm command = determined by printing parameter

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

This parameter specifies the name of a file which will contain output created by a magic script (see the magic script parameter below).

Default: magic output = <magic script name>.out

Example: magic output = myfile.txt

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 executable as 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

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 *;)

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:

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

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

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 = ^

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

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

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 is 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

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

This controls how the DOS read only attribute should be mapped from a UNIX filesystem.

This parameter can take three different values, which tell smbd(8) how to display the read only attribute on files, where either store dos attributes is set to No, or no extended attribute is present. If store dos attributes is set to yes then this parameter is ignored. This is a new parameter introduced in Samba version 3.0.21.

The three settings are :

Default: map read only = yes

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

This parameter is only useful in SECURITY = security modes other than security = share and security = server - i.e. user, and domain.

This parameter can take four 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 four settings are :

Note that this parameter is needed to set up "Guest" share services when using security modes other than share and server. 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. This parameter is not useful with security = server as in this security mode no information is returned about whether a user logon failed due to a bad username or bad password, the same error is returned from a modern server in both cases.

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

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

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

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

Example: max log size = 1000

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

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

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

This parameter is a synonym for max protocol.

The value of the parameter (a string) is the highest protocol level that will be supported by the server.

Possible values are :

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

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

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

This parameter limits the size in memory of any stat cache being used to speed up case insensitive name mappings. It represents the number of kilobyte (1024) units the stat cache can use. A value of zero, meaning unlimited, is not advisable due to increased memory useage. You should not need to change this parameter.

Default: max stat cache size = 256

Example: max stat cache size = 100

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

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

This option controls the maximum packet size that will be negotiated by Samba. The default is 16644, which matches the behavior of Windows 2000. A value below 2048 is likely to cause problems. You should never need to change this parameter from its default value.

Default: max xmit = 16644

Example: max xmit = 8192

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:

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' &

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

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

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

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 the msdfs root and host msdfs options to find out how to set up a Dfs root share.

No default

Example: msdfs proxy = \otherserver\someshare

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 the MSDFS chapter in the Samba3-HOWTO book.

Default: msdfs root = no

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

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:

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

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

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.

There is a bug in Samba-3 that breaks operation of browsing and access to shares if the netbios name is set to the literal name PIPE. To avoid this problem, do not name your Samba-3 server PIPE.

Default: netbios name = # machine DNS name

Example: netbios name = MYNAME

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 =

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

This boolean parameter controls whether smbd(8) will attempt to map UNIX permissions into Windows NT access control lists. The UNIX permissions considered are the the traditional UNIX owner and group permissions, as well as POSIX ACLs set on any files or directories. This parameter was formally a global parameter in releases prior to 2.2.2.

Default: nt acl support = yes

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

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

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

Allow or disallow client access to accounts that have null passwords.

See also smbpasswd(5).

Default: null passwords = no

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

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 security = 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

This parameter was added in Samba 3.0.23. This is an internal tuning parameter that sets the hash size of the tdb used for the open file databases. The presence of this parameter allows tuning of the system for very large (thousands of concurrent users) Samba setups. The default setting of this parameter should be sufficient for most normal environments. It is advised not to change this parameter unless advised to by a Samba Team member.

Default: open files database hash size = 10007

Example: open files database hash size = 1338457

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.

Default: oplock break wait time = 0

This is a very advanced smbd(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.

Default: oplock contention limit = 2

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 file Speed.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 the kernel oplocks parameter for details.

Default: oplocks = yes

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 the chapter on Classical Printing in the Samba3-HOWTO book. For more details on OS/2 clients, please refer to chapter on other clients in the Samba3-HOWTO book.

Default: os2 driver map =

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. This parameter is largely auto-configured in the Samba-3 release series and it is seldom necessary to manually override the default setting. Please refer to chapter 9 of the Samba-3 HOWTO document for further information regarding the use of this parameter. Note: The maximum value for this parameter is 255. If you use higher values, counting will start at 0!

Default: os level = 20

Example: os level = 65

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

This is a Samba developer option that allows a system command to be called when either smbd(8) or nmbd(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"

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

This option allows the administrator to chose which backend will be used for storing user and possibly group information. This allows you to swap between different storage mechanisms without recompile.

The parameter value is divided into 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:

passdb backend = tdbsam:/etc/samba/private/passdb.tdb 

or multi server LDAP URL with OpenLDAP library:

passdb backend = ldapsam:"ldap://ldap-1.example.com ldap://ldap-2.example.com"

or multi server LDAP URL with Netscape based LDAP library:

passdb backend = ldapsam:"ldap://ldap-1.example.com ldap-2.example.com"

Default: passdb backend = smbpasswd

This parameter controls whether Samba substitutes %-macros in the passdb fields if they are explicitly set. We used to expand macros here, but this turned out to be a bug because the Windows client can expand a variable %G_osver% in which %G would have been substituted by the user's primary group.

Default: passdb expand explicit = no

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 parameter is set. This parameter is off by default.

Default: passwd chat debug = no

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

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 old passsword (%o) is only available when encrypt passwords has been disabled. 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 NEW password*" %n\n "*Reenter NEW password*" %n\n "*Password changed*"

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

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

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.

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:

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 = *

This parameter is a synonym for path.

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

This option specifies the directory where pid files will be placed.

Default: pid directory = ${prefix}/var/locks

Example: pid directory = pid directory = /var/run/

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

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

This boolean option controls whether a non-zero return code from preexec should close the service being connected to.

Default: preexec close = no

This parameter is a synonym for preexec.

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

This parameter is a synonym for preferred master.

This boolean parameter controls if nmbd(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

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

This parameter is a synonym for preload.

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

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

This parameter is a synonym for printable.

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

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 disables any rescanning for new or removed printers after the initial startup.

Default: printcap cache time = 750

Example: printcap cache time = 600

This parameter is a synonym for printcap name.

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.

Default: printcap name = /etc/printcap

Example: printcap name = /etc/myprintcap

After a print job has finished spooling to a service, this command 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.