Recipe 23.7. Managing Samba Logins from Windows 95/98/ME

23.7.1 Problem

A charming Windows 95/98/ME gotcha is that it won't let you send a Samba username—it asks only for a password, so you cannot log in as a different user. How do you make it take both a Samba username and password?

23.7.2 Solution

Windows 95/98/ME sends Samba the Windows username. There is no way to send Samba a different username than the one used to log into Windows. The simplest workaround is to create a new account on Windows with the same name as your Samba user and log in as that Windows user.

You can even do this on the fly, if you're roaming around your workplace and logging in from random PCs. However, this creates a large security hole: Windows helpfully caches the Samba password, so you never need to trouble yourself with entering it again—nor does anyone else who uses the same machine.

23.7.3 Discussion

You can mitigate Windows 95/98/ME's security deficiencies a wee bit by using access control lists in smb.conf. See Recipe 23.9 to learn how to do this.

23.7.4 See Also

• Recipe 23.9

• Windows 95 Networking How-To Guide, a series of howtos that also apply to Windows 98 and ME (search for it on Google or Microsoft.com)