10.4: Accessing older SMB servers

May 17, '05 08:44:00AM

Contributed by: kevster

Tiger only hintI found this over in the Tiger discussion area at Apple's website, and thought I would share it. If you are having trouble mapping network mount points from a server using an older version of Samba (a.k.a. SMB or Windows sharing), here's a workaround...

Tiger now assumes that your SMB server accepts encrypted passwords. Older Windows NT and Unix/Linux servers running Samba (versions older that 3.0) are configured to accept plain text passwords. It is highly recommended that the severs be reconfigured to accept encrypted passwords. However, below is a fix to tell Tiger to send a plain text password for authentication. This assumes you have a working knowledge of the Unix command line:

  1. Open a Terminal session

  2. Type cd /etc

  3. Type sudo vi nsmb.conf -- do NOT edit the smb.conf file. You may not have this file, in which case the command will create it.

  4. Add these lines to the file:
    [default]
    minauth=none
    
  5. Save file (wq in vi) and quit the editor.
Be aware that with this change, Samba now sends plain text passwords, which can be easily captured (via tcpdump).

[robg adds: One of the things 10.4.1 addresses is Samba connectivity; I'm not sure if it's related to this password encryption issue or not.]

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