[Mageia-dev] samba reload does not reread /etc/group

Fri Dec 14 10:33:19 CET 2012

'Twas brillig, and Richard Couture at 14/12/12 01:24 did gyre and gimble:
+> While teaching a class in admin of GNU & Linux I noted that
+> systemctl reload smbd.service does NOT reread the /etc/group file.
+> 
+> When adding a new user to a group which in smb.conf grants them access
+> to a share, it was necessary to restart the service in order to grant
+> the new group members access.
+> 
+> It seems odd that samba is caching /etc/group and if so, odder that it
+> can't reread it during a reload...
+
+It would be very strange if samba were reading /etc/group directly
+anyway I think. Shouldn't it delicate to the nsswitch/getent() system?
+
+Does kill -HUP make the problem go away? If so then there is a problem
+in the systemd unit file or initscript (depending what smb has). Also if
+the initscript does something different on reload than the native
+systemd unit then, again, that is a bug.
+
+Failing that, perhaps (assuming it's running) samba is using nscd (name
+service cashing daemon) in which case you may need to do a "nscd -i
+group" to invalidate the group cache.
+
+Col
+
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
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+