winbindd

winbindd

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The winbindd daemon is part of the winbind service and is used to allow Unix systems to obtain user and group information from a Windows NT/2000 server. Winbind maps Windows relative IDs (RIDs) to Unix UIDs and GIDs and allows accounts stored on the Windows server to be used for Unix authentication. Its purpose is to ease integration of Microsoft and Unix networks when a preexisting Windows domain controller is set up to handle user and computer accounts.

The daemon is accessed by users via the name service switch and PAM. The name service switch calls a library ( /lib/libnss_winbind.so ), which calls the daemon, which in turn calls the Windows NT/2000 server using Microsoft RPC. The PAM module for winbind can call the daemon similarly, allowing users whose accounts are stored on the Windows server to log in to the Unix system and run an interactive shell, FTP, or any other program that authenticates users through PAM.

The winbind subsystem is currently available only for the Linux operating system and a few other systems that use shared libraries, nsswitch and PAM.

Command synopsis

 winbindd   [options]   

Options

-d debuglevel

Sets the debug (sometimes called logging) level. The level can range from 0 to 10. Specifying the value on the command line overrides the value specified in the smb.conf file. Debug level 0 logs only the most important messages; level 1 is normal; levels 3 and above are primarily for debugging.

-i

Runs winbindd interactively. This option is used to override the default, which is for winbindd to detach and run as a daemon.