!== !== UNIX_SECURITY.txt for Samba release 2.2.0-alpha3 24 Mar 2001 !== Contributor: John H Terpstra <jht@samba.org> Date: July 5, 1998 Status: Current Subject: SETTING UNIX FILE SYSTEM SECURITY =============================================================================== The following excerpt from a bug report demonstrates the need to understand Unix file system security and to manage it correctly. Quote: ====== > We are unable to keep individual users from mapping to any other user's > home directory once they have supplied a valid password! They only need > to enter their own password. I have not found *any* method that I can > use to configure samba to enforce that only a user may map their own > home directory. > > User xyzzy can map his home directory. Once mapped user xyzzy can also map > *anyone* elses home directory! ANSWER: ======= This is not a security flaw, it is by design. Samba allows users to have *exactly* the same access to the UNIX filesystem as they would if they were logged onto the UNIX box, except that it only allows such views onto the file system as are allowed by the defined shares. This means that if your UNIX home directories are set up such that one user can happily cd into another users directory and do an ls, the UNIX security solution is to change the UNIX file permissions on the users home directories such that the cd and ls would be denied. Samba tries very had not to second guess the UNIX administrators security policies, and trusts the UNIX admin to set the policies and permissions he or she desires. Samba does allow the setup you require when you have set the "only user = yes" option on the share, is that you have not set the valid users list for the share. Note that only user works in conjunction with the users= list, so to get the behavior you require, add the line : users = %S this is equivalent to: valid users = %S to the definition of the [homes] share, as recommended in the smb.conf man page.