Windows Account Mappings
Another and perhaps more functional implementation of Samba authentication is to grant users’ access to shares based on their current Windows user account. This requires an account map to be set up, in which each Windows ID is mapped to a Linux ID, and as long as the passwords match, the user will be automatically authenticated and granted access. If the passwords do not match, the use will be able to log on to the Samba server using their Windows account and Samba password.
One example would be to create a user Luser as a regular Linux User, and a user Wuser as a user on Windows. Using smbadduser, you would add Luser as a Samba user with a Windows alias of Wuser. Then whenever Wuser connects to Samba, they are logged in as Luser on Linux, thus any files they create are owned by Luser. That may sound confusing but the net result is when you connect to Samba, you can use your Windows account and Linux password to gain access to shares. The command [smbadduser root:corey] creates a Samba user Corey, mapped to the Linux user root, and sets the password of Corey to match that of root. Using this configuration I am not prompted for any credentials when I connect to my Samba server, and I have root access.
User name mapping only work when the security level in the smb.conf file is set to user, and both the username map and smb passwd file are specified.
Samba GUI Administration
There are a number of GUI based administration tools available for Samba. These come in various flavors. There are Web based tools, Windows based tools, and also KDE or GNOME based tools. Current information on these tools can be found at www.samba.org.