smb.conf(5) - Linux man page

Name

smb.conf - The configuration file for the Samba suite

Synopsis

The smb.conf file is a configuration file for the Samba suite. smb.conf contains runtime configuration information for the Samba programs. The smb.conf file is designed to be configured and administered by the swat(8) program. The complete description of the file format and possible parameters held within are here for reference purposes.

File Format

The file consists of sections and parameters. A section begins with the name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next section begins. Sections contain parameters of the form:

name = value

The file is line-based - that is, each newline-terminated line represents either a comment, a section name or a parameter.

Section and parameter names are not case sensitive.

Only the first equals sign in a parameter is significant. Whitespace before or after the first equals sign is discarded. Leading, trailing and internal whitespace in section and parameter names is irrelevant. Leading and trailing whitespace in a parameter value is discarded. Internal whitespace within a parameter value is retained verbatim.

Any line beginning with a semicolon (;) or a hash (#) character is ignored, as are lines containing only whitespace.

Any line ending in a \ is continued on the next line in the customary UNIX fashion.

The values following the equals sign in parameters are all either a string (no quotes needed) or a boolean, which may be given as yes/no, 0/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, but is preserved in string values. Some items such as create masks are numeric.

Section Descriptions

Each section in the configuration file (except for the [global] section) describes a shared resource (known as a share). The section name is the name of the shared resource and the parameters within the section define the shares attributes.

There are three special sections, [global], [homes] and [printers], which are described under special sections. The following notes apply to ordinary section descriptions.

A share consists of a directory to which access is being given plus a description of the access rights which are granted to the user of the service. Some housekeeping options are also specifiable.

Sections are either file share services (used by the client as an extension of their native file systems) or printable services (used by the client to access print services on the host running the server).

Sections may be designated guest services, in which case no password is required to access them. A specified UNIX guest account is used to define access privileges in this case.

Sections other than guest services will require a password to access them. The client provides the username. As older clients only provide passwords and not usernames, you may specify a list of usernames to check against the password using the user = option in the share definition. For modern clients such as Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000, this should not be necessary.

The access rights granted by the server are masked by the access rights granted to the specified or guest UNIX user by the host system. The server does not grant more access than the host system grants.

The following sample section defines a file space share. The user has write access to the path /home/bar. The share is accessed via the share name foo:

     [foo]

path = /home/bar

read only = no

The following sample section defines a printable share. The share is read-only, but printable. That is, the only write access permitted is via calls to open, write to and close a spool file. The guest ok parameter means access will be permitted as the default guest user (specified elsewhere):
[aprinter]

path = /usr/spool/public

read only = yes

printable = yes

guest ok = yes

Special Sections

The [global] section

Parameters in this section apply to the server as a whole, or are defaults for sections that do not specifically define certain items. See the notes under PARAMETERS for more information.

The [homes] section

If a section called [homes] is included in the configuration file, services connecting clients to their home directories can be created on the fly by the server. When the connection request is made, the existing sections are scanned. If a match is found, it is used. If no match is found, the requested section name is treated as a username and looked up in the local password file. If the name exists and the correct password has been given, a share is created by cloning the [homes] section. Some modifications are then made to the newly created share:
* The share name is changed from homes to the located username. * If no path was given, the path is set to the user's home directory.
If you decide to use a path = line in your [homes] section, it may be useful to use the %S macro. For example:
path = /data/pchome/%S
is useful if you have different home directories for your PCs than for UNIX access.
This is a fast and simple way to give a large number of clients access to their home directories with a minimum of fuss.
A similar process occurs if the requested section name is homes, except that the share name is not changed to that of the requesting user. This method of using the [homes] section works well if different users share a client PC.
The [homes] section can specify all the parameters a normal service section can specify, though some make more sense than others. The following is a typical and suitable [homes] section:
[homes] read only = no
An important point is that if guest access is specified in the [homes] section, all home directories will be visible to all clients without a password. In the very unlikely event that this is actually desirable, it is wise to also specify read only access.
The browseable flag for auto home directories will be inherited from the global browseable flag, not the [homes] browseable flag. This is useful as it means setting browseable = no in the [homes] section will hide the [homes] share but make any auto home directories visible.

The [printers] section

This section works like [homes], but for printers. If a [printers] section occurs in the configuration file, users are able to connect to any printer specified in the local host's printcap file. When a connection request is made, the existing sections are scanned. If a match is found, it is used. If no match is found, but a [homes] section exists, it is used as described above. Otherwise, the requested section name is treated as a printer name and the appropriate printcap file is scanned to see if the requested section name is a valid printer share name. If a match is found, a new printer share is created by cloning the [printers] section. A few modifications are then made to the newly created share:
* The share name is set to the located printer name * If no printer name was given, the printer name is set to the located printer name * If the share does not permit guest access and no username was given, the username is set to the located printer name.
The [printers] service MUST be printable - if you specify otherwise, the server will refuse to load the configuration file.
Typically the path specified is that of a world-writeable spool directory with the sticky bit set on it. A typical [printers] entry looks like this:
[printers] path = /usr/spool/public guest ok = yes printable = yes
All aliases given for a printer in the printcap file are legitimate printer names as far as the server is concerned. If your printing subsystem doesn't work like that, you will have to set up a pseudo-printcap. This is a file consisting of one or more lines like this:
alias|alias|alias|alias...
Each alias should be an acceptable printer name for your printing subsystem. In the [global] section, specify the new file as your printcap. The server will only recognize names found in your pseudo-printcap, which of course can contain whatever aliases you like. The same technique could be used simply to limit access to a subset of your local printers.
An alias, by the way, is defined as any component of the first entry of a printcap record. Records are separated by newlines, components (if there are more than one) are separated by vertical bar symbols (|).
Note
On SYSV systems which use lpstat to determine what printers are defined on the system you may be able to use printcap name = lpstat to automatically obtain a list of printers. See the printcap name option for more details.

Usershares

Starting with Samba version 3.0.23 the capability for non-root users to add, modify, and delete their own share definitions has been added. This capability is called usershares and is controlled by a set of parameters in the [global] section of the smb.conf. The relevant parameters are :

usershare allow guests

Controls if usershares can permit guest access.
usershare max shares
Maximum number of user defined shares allowed.
usershare owner only
If set only directories owned by the sharing user can be shared.
usershare path
Points to the directory containing the user defined share definitions. The filesystem permissions on this directory control who can create user defined shares.
usershare prefix allow list
Comma-separated list of absolute pathnames restricting what directories can be shared. Only directories below the pathnames in this list are permitted.
usershare prefix deny list
Comma-separated list of absolute pathnames restricting what directories can be shared. Directories below the pathnames in this list are prohibited.
usershare template share
Names a pre-existing share used as a template for creating new usershares. All other share parameters not specified in the user defined share definition are copied from this named share.
To allow members of the UNIX group foo to create user defined shares, create the directory to contain the share definitions as follows: Become root: mkdir /usr/local/samba/lib/usershares chgrp foo /usr/local/samba/lib/usershares chmod 1770 /usr/local/samba/lib/usershares Then add the parameters usershare path = /usr/local/samba/lib/usershares: usershare max shares = 10 # (or the desired number of shares)
to the global section of your smb.conf. Members of the group foo may then manipulate the user defined shares using the following commands. net usershare add sharename path [comment] [acl] [guest_ok=[y|n]]
To create or modify (overwrite) a user defined share.
net usershare delete sharename
To delete a user defined share.
net usershare list wildcard-sharename
To list user defined shares.
net usershare info wildcard-sharename
To print information about user defined shares.

Parameters

Parameters define the specific attributes of sections.

Some parameters are specific to the [global] section (e.g., security). Some parameters are usable in all sections (e.g., create mask). All others are permissible only in normal sections. For the purposes of the following descriptions the [homes] and [printers] sections will be considered normal. The letter G in parentheses indicates that a parameter is specific to the [global] section. The letter S indicates that a parameter can be specified in a service specific section. All S parameters can also be specified in the [global] section - in which case they will define the default behavior for all services.

Parameters are arranged here in alphabetical order - this may not create best bedfellows, but at least you can find them! Where there are synonyms, the preferred synonym is described, others refer to the preferred synonym.

Variable Substitutions

Many of the strings that are settable in the config file can take substitutions. For example the option path = /tmp/%u is interpreted as path = /tmp/john if the user connected with the username john.

These substitutions are mostly noted in the descriptions below, but there are some general substitutions which apply whenever they might be relevant. These are:

session username (the username that the client wanted, not necessarily the same as the one they got).
%G
primary group name of %U.
%h
the Internet hostname that Samba is running on.
%m
the NetBIOS name of the client machine (very useful). This parameter is not available when Samba listens on port 445, as clients no longer send this information. If you use this macro in an include statement on a domain that has a Samba domain controller be sure to set in the [global] section smb ports = 139. This will cause Samba to not listen on port 445 and will permit include functionality to function as it did with Samba 2.x.
%L
the NetBIOS name of the server. This allows you to change your config based on what the client calls you. Your server can have a dual personality.
%M
the Internet name of the client machine.
%R
the selected protocol level after protocol negotiation. It can be one of CORE, COREPLUS, LANMAN1, LANMAN2 or NT1.
%d
the process id of the current server process.
%a
the architecture of the remote machine. It currently recognizes Samba (Samba), the Linux CIFS file system (CIFSFS), OS/2, (OS2), Windows for Workgroups (WfWg), Windows 9x/ME (Win95), Windows NT (WinNT), Windows 2000 (Win2K), Windows XP (WinXP), and Windows 2003 (Win2K3). Anything else will be known as UNKNOWN.
%I
the IP address of the client machine.
%i
the local IP address to which a client connected.
%T
the current date and time.
%D
name of the domain or workgroup of the current user.
%w
the winbind separator.
%$(envvar)
the value of the environment variable envar.
The following substitutes apply only to some configuration options (only those that are used when a connection has been established): %S
the name of the current service, if any.
%P
the root directory of the current service, if any.
%u
username of the current service, if any.
%g
primary group name of %u.
%H
the home directory of the user given by %u.
%N
the name of your NIS home directory server. This is obtained from your NIS auto.map entry. If you have not compiled Samba with the --with-automount option, this value will be the same as %L.
%p
the path of the service's home directory, obtained from your NIS auto.map entry. The NIS auto.map entry is split up as %N:%p.
There are some quite creative things that can be done with these substitutions and other smb.conf options.

Name Mangling

Samba supports name mangling so that DOS and Windows clients can use files that don't conform to the 8.3 format. It can also be set to adjust the case of 8.3 format filenames.

There are several options that control the way mangling is performed, and they are grouped here rather than listed separately. For the defaults look at the output of the testparm program.

These options can be set separately for each service.

The options are:

case sensitive = yes/no/auto

controls whether filenames are case sensitive. If they aren't, Samba must do a filename search and match on passed names. The default setting of auto allows clients that support case sensitive filenames (Linux CIFSVFS and smbclient 3.0.5 and above currently) to tell the Samba server on a per-packet basis that they wish to access the file system in a case-sensitive manner (to support UNIX case sensitive semantics). No Windows or DOS system supports case-sensitive filename so setting this option to auto is that same as setting it to no for them. Default auto.
default case = upper/lower
controls what the default case is for new filenames (ie. files that don't currently exist in the filesystem). Default lower. IMPORTANT NOTE: This option will be used to modify the case of all incoming client filenames, not just new filenames if the options case sensitive = yes, preserve case = No, short preserve case = No are set. This change is needed as part of the optimisations for directories containing large numbers of files.
preserve case = yes/no
controls whether new files (ie. files that don't currently exist in the filesystem) are created with the case that the client passes, or if they are forced to be the default case. Default yes.
short preserve case = yes/no
controls if new files (ie. files that don't currently exist in the filesystem) which conform to 8.3 syntax, that is all in upper case and of suitable length, are created upper case, or if they are forced to be the default case. This option can be used with preserve case = yes to permit long filenames to retain their case, while short names are lowercased. Default yes.
By default, Samba 3.0 has the same semantics as a Windows NT server, in that it is case insensitive but case preserving. As a special case for directories with large numbers of files, if the case options are set as follows, "case sensitive = yes", "case preserve = no", "short preserve case = no" then the "default case" option will be applied and will modify all filenames sent from the client when accessing this share.

NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION

There are a number of ways in which a user can connect to a service. The server uses the following steps in determining if it will allow a connection to a specified service. If all the steps fail, the connection request is rejected. However, if one of the steps succeeds, the following steps are not checked.

If the service is marked guest only = yes and the server is running with share-level security (security = share, steps 1 to 5 are skipped.

1. If the client has passed a username/password pair and that username/password pair is validated by the UNIX system's password programs, the connection is made as that username. This includes the \\server\service%username method of passing a username. 2. If the client has previously registered a username with the system and now supplies a correct password for that username, the connection is allowed. 3. The client's NetBIOS name and any previously used usernames are checked against the supplied password. If they match, the connection is allowed as the corresponding user. 4. If the client has previously validated a username/password pair with the server and the client has passed the validation token, that username is used. 5. If a user = field is given in the smb.conf file for the service and the client has supplied a password, and that password matches (according to the UNIX system's password checking) with one of the usernames from the user = field, the connection is made as the username in the user = line. If one of the usernames in the user = list begins with a @, that name expands to a list of names in the group of the same name. 6. If the service is a guest service, a connection is made as the username given in the guest account = for the service, irrespective of the supplied password.

Explanation Of Each Parameter

abort shutdown script (G)

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

acl check permissions (S)

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

acl compatibility (S)

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

acl group control (S)

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 was 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 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

acl map full control (S)

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

add group script (G)

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

add machine script (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

add port command (G)

Samba 3.0.23 introduces 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. he script is passed two parameters:

port name

device URI

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

add printer command (G)

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):

printer name

share name

port name

driver name

location

Windows 9x driver location

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

add share command (G)

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

configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.

shareName - the name of the new share.

pathName - path to an **existing** directory on disk.

comment - comment string to associate with the new share.

max connections Number of maximum simultaneous connections to this share.

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

add user script (G)

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

add user to group script (G)

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

admin users (S)

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

afs share (S)

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

afs username map (G)

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

aio read size (S)

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. write cache size aio write size Default: aio read size = 0 Example: aio read size = 16384 # Use asynchronous I/O for reads bigger than 16KB request size

aio write size (S)

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. write cache size aio read size Default: aio write size = 0 Example: aio write size = 16384 # Use asynchronous I/O for writes bigger than 16KB request size

algorithmic rid base (G)

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 arbitary-rid supporting backends. Default: algorithmic rid base = 1000 Example: algorithmic rid base = 100000

allocation roundup size (S)

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)

allow trusted domains (G)

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

announce as (G)

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

announce version (G)

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

auth methods (G)

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

available (S)

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

bind interfaces only (G)

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

blocking locks (S)

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

block size (S)

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

browsable

This parameter is a synonym for browseable.

browseable (S)

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

browse list (G)

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

casesignames

This parameter is a synonym for case sensitive.

case sensitive (S)

See the discussion in the section name mangling. Default: case sensitive = no

change notify (S)

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 = no

change share command (G)

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

configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.

shareName - the name of the new share.

pathName - path to an **existing** directory on disk.

comment - comment string to associate with the new share.

max connections Number of maximum simultaneous connections to this share.

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

check password script (G)

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

client lanman auth (G)

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

client ntlmv2 auth (G)

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

client plaintext auth (G)

Specifies whether a client should send a plaintext password if the server does not support encrypted passwords. Default: client plaintext auth = yes

client schannel (G)

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

client signing (G)

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

client use spnego (G)

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

comment (S)

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 net 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

config file (G)

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

copy (S)

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

create mode

This parameter is a synonym for create mask.

create mask (S)

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

csc policy (S)

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

cups options (S)

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.
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,job-sheets=secret,secret"

cups server (G)

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

deadtime (G)

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

debug hires timestamp (G)

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

debug pid (G)

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

debug prefix timestamp (G)

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

timestamp logs

This parameter is a synonym for debug timestamp.

debug timestamp (G)

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

debug uid (G)

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

default case (S)

See the section on name mangling. Also note the short preserve case parameter. Default: default case = lower

default devmode (S)

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

default

This parameter is a synonym for default service.

default service (G)

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

defer sharing violations (G)

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

delete group script (G)

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 =

deleteprinter command (G)

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

delete readonly (S)

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

delete share command (G)

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

configFile - the location of the global smb.conf file.

shareName - the name of the existing service.

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

delete user from group script (G)

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

delete user script (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

delete veto files (S)

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

dfree cache time (S)

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

dfree command (S)

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 $2" "$4}'
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

directory mode

This parameter is a synonym for directory mask.

directory mask (S)

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

directory security mask (S)

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 (AND'ed with) to the changed permission bits, thus preventing any bits not in this mask from being modified. 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 may be treated as a set of bits the user is not allowed to change.
If not set explicitly this parameter is set to 0777 meaning a user is allowed to modify 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

disable netbios (G)

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.
Note
Clients that only support netbios won't be able to see your samba server when netbios support is disabled. Default: disable netbios = no

disable spoolss (G)

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

display charset (G)

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

dmapi support (S)

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

dns proxy (G)

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

domain logons (G)

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

domain master (G)

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

dont descend (S)

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 charset (G)

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

dos filemode (S)

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

dos filetime resolution (S)

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

dos filetimes (S)

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

ea support (S)

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

enable asu support (G)

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

enable privileges (G)

This parameter controls whether or not smbd will honor privileges assigned to specific SIDs via either net 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

encrypt passwords (G)

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

enhanced browsing (G)

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

enumports command (G)

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

eventlog list (G)

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

fake directory create times (S)

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

fake oplocks (S)

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

follow symlinks (S)

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

force create mode (S)

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

force directory mode (S)

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

force directory security mode (S)

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.
Note
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 set as 0000. Default: force directory security mode = 0
Example: force directory security mode = 700

group

This parameter is a synonym for force group.

force group (S)

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

force printername (S)

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

force security mode (S)

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

force unknown acl user (S)

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

force user (S)

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

fstype (S)

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

get quota command (G)

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 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:

directory

type of query

uid of user or gid of group

The type of query can be one of :

1 - user quotas

2 - user default quotas (uid = -1)

3 - group quotas

4 - group default quotas (gid = -1)

This script should print one line as output with spaces

between the arguments. The arguments are:

Arg 1 - quota flags (0 = no quotas, 1 = quotas enabled, 2 = quotas enabled and enforced)

Arg 2 - number of currently used blocks

Arg 3 - the softlimit number of blocks

Arg 4 - the hardlimit number of blocks

Arg 5 - currently used number of inodes

Arg 6 - the softlimit number of inodes

Arg 7 - the hardlimit number of inodes

Arg 8(optional) - the number of bytes in a block(default is 1024)

Default: get quota command =

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

getwd cache (G)

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

guest account (G)

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

public

This parameter is a synonym for guest ok.

guest ok (S)

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

only guest

This parameter is a synonym for guest only.

guest only (S)

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

hide dot files (S)

This is a boolean parameter that controls whether files starting with a dot appear as hidden files. Default: hide dot files = yes

hide files (S)

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

hide special files (S)

This parameter prevents clients from seeing special files such as sockets, devices and fifo's in directory listings. Default: hide special files = no

hide unreadable (S)

This parameter prevents clients from seeing the existance of files that cannot be read. Defaults to off. Default: hide unreadable = no

hide unwriteable files (S)

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

homedir map (G)

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.
Note
A working NIS client is required on the system for this option to work. Default: homedir map =
Example: homedir map = amd.homedir

host msdfs (G)

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

hostname lookups (G)

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

allow hosts

This parameter is a synonym for hosts allow.

hosts allow (S)

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
Note
Note that access still requires suitable user-level passwords. 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

deny hosts

This parameter is a synonym for hosts deny.

hosts deny (S)

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

idmap alloc backend (G)

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

idmap alloc config (G)

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

idmap backend (G)

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

idmap cache time (G)

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

idmap config (G)

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:

backend = backend_name

Specifies the name of the idmap plugin to use as the SID/uid/gid backend for this domain.

default = [yes|no]

The default domain/backend will be used for searching for users and groups not belonging to one of the explicitly listed domains (matched by comparing the account SID and the domain SID).

readonly = [yes|no]

Mark the domain as readonly which means that no attempts to allocate a uid or gid (by the idmap alloc backend) for any user or group in that domain will be attempted.

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

idmap domains (G)

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

winbind gid

This parameter is a synonym for idmap gid.

idmap gid (G)

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

idmap negative cache time (G)

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

winbind uid

This parameter is a synonym for idmap uid.

idmap uid (G)

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

include (G)

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

inherit acls (S)

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

inherit owner (S)

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

inherit permissions (S)

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

interfaces (G)

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:

a network interface name (such as eth0). This may include shell-like wildcards so eth* will match any interface starting with the substring "eth"

an IP address. In this case the netmask is determined from the list of interfaces obtained from the kernel

an IP/mask pair.

a broadcast/mask pair.

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

invalid users (S)

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

iprint server (G)

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

keepalive (G)

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

kernel change notify (S)

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

kernel oplocks (G)

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

lanman auth (G)

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

large readwrite (G)

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

ldap admin dn (G)

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

ldap delete dn (G)

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

ldap group suffix (G)

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

ldap idmap suffix (G)

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

ldap machine suffix (G)

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

ldap passwd sync (G)

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:

Yes = Try to update the LDAP, NT and LM passwords and update the pwdLastSet time.

No = Update NT and LM passwords and update the pwdLastSet time.

Only = Only update the LDAP password and let the LDAP server do the rest.

Default: ldap passwd sync = no

ldap replication sleep (G)

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

ldapsam:editposix (G)

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 net 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

ldapsam:trusted (G)

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

ldap ssl (G)

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:

Off = Never use SSL when querying the directory.

Start_tls = Use the LDAPv3 StartTLS extended operation (RFC2830) for communicating with the directory server.

On = Use SSL on the ldaps port when contacting the ldap server. Only available when the backwards-compatiblity --with-ldapsam option is specified to configure. See passdb backend

.RE

Default: ldap ssl = start_tls

ldap suffix (G)

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

ldap timeout (G)

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

ldap user suffix (G)

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

level2 oplocks (S)

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

lm announce (G)

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 suc