Why does smbpasswd not work for some users?

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 14:40 +0100, Bob Latham wrote:
> In article <1219990339.2949.1.camel at lin-workstation.azapple.com>,
>    Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 10:04 +0100, Bob Latham wrote:
> > > Hi Everyone,
> > > 
> > > Using Fedora8.
> > > 
> > > I find some users I create have no problem having their smb passwords
> > > changed using smbpasswd. Others simply don't work and I get the error
> > > message "Failed to modify password entry for user <whatever>".
> > > 
> > > What are the possible causes for this, and could you point me at a
> > > method of fixing it please?
> > > 
> > > I remember from a fiddle I had with Linux some years ago that I used
> > > to have to copy the OS user passwords to SMB passwords using a method
> > > like this...
> > > 
> > > cat /etc/passwd | mksmbpasswd.sh > /etc/samba/smbpasswd
> > > 
> > > Is this procedure still required?
> 
> > ---- No way...and I don't recall when that ever would have worked.
> 
> > users changing their password from command line smbpasswd, I've never
> > seen that fail. It makes no sense that it would fail.
> 
> Hi Craig,
> 
> Thanks for the help.
> 
> So I should never need to do this?
> 
> Okay, so how does Samba authenticate users (no other server) is it with
> the smbpasswd file? If so how does it get its info?
> 
> In stupidity and desperation I've managed to break my smbpasswd file. Now
> the command smbpasswd -a <name> doesn't function at all. Is there anyway
> to repair it? Or get a default copy?
----
not that I am aware of...backup is the method used to protect yourself
----
> 
> The amazing thing is, the samba shares still work after a reboot with no
> smbpasswd file. I'm so confused, I think i've got my head around how it
> works and then something comes along and proves I had it wrong again.
> 
> I only want to set up samba shares. <sob>
----
I'm not sure that Fedora 9 uses an smbpasswd passdb by default. What is
output (as root) of command...
testparm -s |grep passdb

?

Craig