Enabling guest and generic access

Two ways to give access to unauthenticated or occasional users

You can enable unauthenticated or occasional users to have access to the filer through CIFS in one of two ways.


For users who are...	Use...
not in a trusted domain	a guest account
authenticated do not have an entry in the /etc/passwd file on the filer	a generic user account

Guest accounts

If you using Windows NT domain authentication, guests are users who are not in trusted domains.

If you use a UNIX password database for authentication, guests are users who do not have an entry in the database.

Setting up a guest account

To set up a guest account, use the following options command:

options cifs.guest_account account_name

where account_name is the name of the guest account, usually guest or nobody, which is a preconfigured account in the /etc/passwd file.

If you are using UNIX-style authentication, set the guest account to the name of an account in the UNIX password database, typically guest, which is mapped to the UNIX account nobody with the same access rights as the user everyone.

Disabling guest access

To disable guest access, use the following option command:

options cifs.guest_account

with a "" as account_name.

Generic user accounts

If you are using Windows NT domain authentication, a generic user account is mapped by default with the name "pcuser." The generic user account enables users who meet the criteria described later in this section to connect to NTFS or mixed qtrees on the filer. For information about qtrees, see Chapter 12, "Qtree administration," or FilerView on-line help.

Note: For generic user accounts to be active, pcuser must be an account in the /etc/passwd file.

Who can use the generic user account

To use the generic user account, a user must

be authenticated
be in a trusted domain
not have an entry in the UNIX password database

All users of the generic user account have the same UNIX rights and the Windows NT rights granted by their Windows NT group membership because they appear as one account to the system.

Setting up a generic user account

To set up a generic user account, use one of the following options commands with an account name to use as an argument.:


User type	Option	Description
NT	wafl.default_unix_user	Specifies the UNIX user account to use when an NT user attempts to log in and that NT user would not otherwise be mapped.
UNIX	wafl.default_nt_user	Specifies the NT user account to use when a UNIX user accesses a file with NT security (has an ACL), and that UNIX user would not otherwise be mapped.

Disabling generic user access

To disable generic user access, use the options described in the previous table with a "" as account_name.

Part No. 210-02334
File: cifs7.htm
Last updated: 02/24/99 12:16:32