Samba error: some users can connect others can't?

[Tony Walker]

Hi Guys,

Right, I have a K-class which we use as an 'NT' Fileserver via samba. This has been working fine lately but last Friday we had report of some users not being able to connect. Of the 200+ accounts on the server there are at least 100 successful connections but there are others who get an invalid path/network name error. The smb.log file shows the following error:

[2002/05/27 10:39:58, 0] smbd/uid.c:become_gid(105)
Couldn't set effective gid to -24 currently set to (real=0,eff=0)
[2002/05/27 10:39:58, 0] smbd/service.c:make_connection(463)
Can't become connected user!

The problem is where exactly does the problem lie. I'm under the impression that the userid isn't being accepted by samba so it is trying set it to the guest account (nobody) but can't as guest OK = no. Would I be right, is this more a problem on the windows/NT side of things?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank,

Ton

[Steve Steel]

Hi

But a couple of things to check - make sure
that you have
a process running called pwgrd; looks something like:

root 1547 1 0 07:46:40 ? 0:04 /usr/sbin/pwgrd

This is used to speed up lookups via hash tables, etc.

Also, the gid -24 error you are getting is probably because you haven't
defined a
guest account = xxxxxxx in your smb.conf file; if you do not assign this to
a dummy
user in /etc/passwd, then it will default to using the nobody account, who
has a uid/gid
of -24; and samba is NOT good with handling uid/gid's that are negative, and
will cause
problems. I use the following; in global section of smb.conf:

guest account = pcguest

in /etc/passwd:

pcguest:*:277:20:sambauser::/bin/false

Hope this helps,


steve Steel

[Tony Walker]

Thanks for the reply Steve. The problem is now fixed but was due to the WINS service on the NT authentication server not running!! I've made the changes to the guest account though as you suggested.

Cheers,

Tony