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If I understand correctly, to join a Windows domain, a machine needs to have an account on Active Directory, and have the password to authenticate. Such a password is renewed automatically every 30 days.

Now, I have a Linux machine on the corporate network, with the IT dept's blessing, and Samba can join a domain and would allow me to do so, but they don't want to add it. I want to use the account I have on a Windows machine I'm going to reformat anyway. I couldn't find a way to decode the key stored in the registry.

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It is possible to dump the hashes from a Windows system and import them into Samba. The process is explained here http://ppp.samba.org/samba/ftp/pwdump/README. However do consider the IT department might not be happy with you doing such things and there is no guarante that it will work for what your trying to do.

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  • I'll look into this, but I'm not sure this is going to work on XP. As for the IT dept, weeell, how shall I say, they are certified Mediocre Or Relatively Ordinary Network Specialists™. They couldn't even find a worm-infected laptop on the network, they had to go door to door to run manual checks instead of looking up the offending MAC on the switches.
    – niXar
    Aug 11, 2009 at 10:34
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    If your sure its a route you wish to pursue you might want to checkout Cain & Abel its a very good program for retriving hashes ammongst other things. But be warned it could be considered a bit dodgy, I have used it previously to get system hashes.
    – Mark Davidson
    Aug 11, 2009 at 11:47
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Hopefully the IT group is as respectful about you as you are about them (sarcasm intended). What does it benefit you to disparage and insult them? Does it make you a better developer? Does it make your boss respect you more? Does it make you a better person? No? Then why do it? There's no glory and certainly no honor in bashing someone else's abilities.

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  • Oh they hate me alright. Thing is, everybody in the company hates them. They have to endure their incompetence, lose countless hours to their inanity. Imagine having a 10Mbps internet connection for 500 users and all the apps are hosted remotely and have to go through that bottleneck. If they knew how set up a simple MRTG they would see the problem, but that's beyond them. But beyond venting off my frustration, I posted those details so as to preempt comments such as that of Chopper3 ... to little effect obviously.
    – niXar
    Sep 22, 2009 at 21:25
  • Well it seems emotions are running high on this one. I feel for you. I usually just try to stifle my frustration as I'm sure someone in the world is grumbling about what a schmuck I am.
    – joeqwerty
    Sep 22, 2009 at 23:52
  • Do unto others ... well that might just be the problem: I've never had one with criticism. I'd rather have someone tell me how I could things better. The people I'm talking about here cannot even take simple advice or even a bug report. The other day I had trouble downloading a Linux ISO because there (still) is a problem with the firewall (AFAICT); I filed a ticket with logs and all the technical details, they responded with a passive-aggressive email saying what an insensitive clod I was for hogging the bandwidth and how I should download at home. No kidding.
    – niXar
    Sep 23, 2009 at 9:35
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Question: Why would you need to join a Windows domain?

At work, I use Linux only. The entire infrastructure is Windows. I mount Windows shares without problems:

mount -t smbfs "//fileserver/sharename" /mnt/mntpoint/ \
-o credentials=filename,uid=...,gid=...,fmask=0755,dmask=0755

The credentials file looks like:

username=DOMAIN/username
password=mywindowspassword

I have a simple script I run after logging in that mounts all the shares I need (I run it manually, since I am not always on the company network). Whenever I need to change the domain password, I just edit the credentials file. I usually find out that my password is expired when the shares stop working. I then borrow a colleague's Windows computer and log in using that. Windows prompts me to change the password.

I am not sure if what you ask makes sense for a Linux computer. What would joining a Windows domain mean for a Linux box?

Edit:

I get it. Your Linux box is a SMB file server? And you want to make it available for the Windows users?

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  • Not quite, I can't seem to be able to print without joining the domain; I used to be able to through CUPS by setting my password in the URL to the printer, but they changed something and it doesn't work anymore.
    – niXar
    Sep 22, 2009 at 21:13
  • I voted you up because it's informative, even though it didn't answer the question; I'm doing that kind of thing already for file servers (actually automagically through Gnome), but that's not joining the domain.
    – niXar
    Sep 23, 2009 at 9:37
  • Have you tried printing using smbclient. Have not tried it myself, but found some info on the net. Se for instance unix.com/unix-dummies-questions-answers/…
    – codeape
    Sep 23, 2009 at 12:23
  • Yeah that's what I was doing, only through CUPS. I get rejected every time now.
    – niXar
    Sep 23, 2009 at 18:05

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