Integration of UNIX and Microsoft Windows NT through a unified logon has been considered a " holy grail " in heterogeneous computing environments for a long time. There is one other facility without which UNIX and Microsoft Windows network interoperability would suffer greatly. It is imperative that there be a mechanism for sharing files across UNIX systems and to be able to assign domain user and group ownerships with integrity. winbind is a component of the Samba suite of programs that solves the unified logon problem. Winbind uses a UNIX implementation of Microsoft RPC calls, Pluggable Authentication Modules, and the Name Service Switch to allow Windows NT domain users to appear and operate as UNIX users on a UNIX machine. This chapter describes the Winbind system, explaining the functionality it provides, how it is configured, and how it works internally. Winbind provides three separate functions:
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