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SMBPASSWD(5) File Formats and Conventions SMBPASSWD(5)
NAME
smbpasswd - The Samba encrypted password file
SYNOPSIS
smbpasswd
DESCRIPTION
This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.
smbpasswd is the Samba encrypted password file. It contains the
username, Unix user id and the SMB hashed passwords of the user, as
well as account flag information and the time the password was last
changed. This file format has been evolving with Samba and has had
several different formats in the past.
FILE FORMAT
The format of the smbpasswd file used by Samba 2.2 is very similar to
the familiar Unix passwd(5) file. It is an ASCII file containing one
line for each user. Each field within each line is separated from the
next by a colon. Any entry beginning with '#' is ignored. The smbpasswd
file contains the following information for each user:
name
This is the user name. It must be a name that already exists in the
standard UNIX passwd file.
uid
This is the UNIX uid. It must match the uid field for the same user
entry in the standard UNIX passwd file. If this does not match then
Samba will refuse to recognize this smbpasswd file entry as being
valid for a user.
Lanman Password Hash
This is the LANMAN hash of the user's password, encoded as 32 hex
digits. The LANMAN hash is created by DES encrypting a well known
string with the user's password as the DES key. This is the same
password used by Windows 95/98 machines. Note that this password
hash is regarded as weak as it is vulnerable to dictionary attacks
and if two users choose the same password this entry will be
identical (i.e. the password is not "salted" as the UNIX password
is). If the user has a null password this field will contain the
characters "NO PASSWORD" as the start of the hex string. If the hex
string is equal to 32 'X' characters then the user's account is
marked as disabled and the user will not be able to log onto the
Samba server.
WARNING !! Note that, due to the challenge-response nature of the
SMB/CIFS authentication protocol, anyone with a knowledge of this
password hash will be able to impersonate the user on the network.
For this reason these hashes are known as plain text equivalents
and must NOT be made available to anyone but the root user. To
protect these passwords the smbpasswd file is placed in a directory
with read and traverse access only to the root user and the
smbpasswd file itself must be set to be read/write only by root,
with no other access.
NT Password Hash
much higher quality hashing algorithm. However, it is still the
case that if two users choose the same password this entry will be
identical (i.e. the password is not "salted" as the UNIX password
is).
WARNING !!. Note that, due to the challenge-response nature of the
SMB/CIFS authentication protocol, anyone with a knowledge of this
password hash will be able to impersonate the user on the network.
For this reason these hashes are known as plain text equivalents
and must NOT be made available to anyone but the root user. To
protect these passwords the smbpasswd file is placed in a directory
with read and traverse access only to the root user and the
smbpasswd file itself must be set to be read/write only by root,
with no other access.
Account Flags
This section contains flags that describe the attributes of the
users account. This field is bracketed by '[' and ']' characters
and is always 13 characters in length (including the '[' and ']'
characters). The contents of this field may be any of the following
characters:
o U - This means this is a "User" account, i.e. an
ordinary user.
o N - This means the account has no password (the
passwords in the fields LANMAN Password Hash and NT
Password Hash are ignored). Note that this will only
allow users to log on with no password if the null
passwords parameter is set in the smb.conf(5) config
file.
o D - This means the account is disabled and no SMB/CIFS
logins will be allowed for this user.
o X - This means the password does not expire.
o W - This means this account is a "Workstation Trust"
account. This kind of account is used in the Samba PDC
code stream to allow Windows NT Workstations and Servers
to join a Domain hosted by a Samba PDC.
Other flags may be added as the code is extended in future. The
rest of this field space is filled in with spaces. For further
information regarding the flags that are supported please refer to
the man page for the pdbedit command.
Last Change Time
This field consists of the time the account was last modified. It
consists of the characters 'LCT-' (standing for "Last Change Time")
followed by a numeric encoding of the UNIX time in seconds since
the epoch (1970) that the last change was made.
All other colon separated fields are ignored at this time.
VERSION
This man page is part of version 4.13.17 of the Samba suite.
SEE ALSO
Samba 4.13.17 01/31/2022 SMBPASSWD(5)