SAMBA Developers Guide

Jelmer R. Vernooij

22nd April 2008

 Abstract
Last Update : Fri Oct 10 00:59:58 CEST 2003
This book is a collection of documents that might be useful for people de-
veloping samba or those interested in doing so. It’s nothing more than a
collection of documents written by samba developers about the internals of
various parts of samba and the SMB protocol. It’s still (and will always
be) incomplete. The most recent version of this document can be found at
<http://devel.samba.org/>.
This documentation is distributed under the GNU General Public License
(GPL) version 2. A copy of the license is included with the Samba source dis-
tribution. A copy can be found on-line at <http://www.fsf.org/licenses/
gpl.txt>

Warning

This document is incomplete and unmaintained. It is

merely a collection of development-related notes.
ATTRIBUTION

Chapter 1, “NetBIOS in a Unix World”

• Andrew Tridgell
Chapter 2, “NT Domain RPC’s”
• Luke Leighton<mailto:lkcl@switchboard.net>
• Paul Ashton<mailto:paul@argo.demon.co.uk>
• Duncan Stansfield<mailto:duncans@sco.com>
Chapter 3, “Samba Architecture”
• Dan Shearer
Chapter 4, “The samba DEBUG system”
• Chris Hertel
Chapter 5, “Samba Internals”
• David Chappell<mailto:David.Chappell@mail.trincoll.edu>
Chapter 6, “Coding Suggestions”
• Steve French
• Simo Sorce
• Andrew Bartlett
• Tim Potter
• Martin Pool
Chapter 7, “Contributing code”
• Jelmer R. Vernooij<mailto:jelmer@samba.org>
Chapter 8, “Modules”
• Jelmer Vernooij<mailto:jelmer@samba.org>
Chapter 9, “RPC Pluggable Modules”

ii
Attribution iii

• Anthony Liguori<mailto:aliguor@us.ibm.com>
• Jelmer Vernooij<mailto:jelmer@samba.org>
Chapter 10, “VFS Modules”
• Alexander Bokovoy<mailto:ab@samba.org>
• Stefan Metzmacher<mailto:metze@samba.org>
Chapter 11, “The smb.conf file”
• Chris Hertel
Chapter 12, “Samba WINS Internals”
• Gerald Carter
Chapter 13, “LanMan and NT Password Encryption”
• Jeremy Allison<mailto:samba@samba.org>
Chapter 14, “Tracing samba system calls”
• Andrew Tridgell
Chapter 15, “Samba Printing Internals”
• Gerald Carter
Chapter 16, “Notes to packagers”
• Jelmer Vernooij
CONTENTS

Contents

ATTRIBUTION ii

Part I The protocol 1

Chapter 1 NETBIOS IN A UNIX WORLD 3

1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Usernames 3
1.3 File Ownership 4
1.4 Passwords 4
1.5 Locking 5
1.6 Deny Modes 6
1.7 Trapdoor UIDs 6
1.8 Port numbers 6
1.9 Protocol Complexity 7

Chapter 2 NT DOMAIN RPC’S 9

2.1 Introduction 9
2.1.1 Sources 11
2.1.2 Credits 11
2.2 Notes and Structures 11
2.2.1 Notes 11
2.2.2 Enumerations 12
2.2.2.1 MSRPC Header type 12
2.2.2.2 MSRPC Packet info 12
2.2.3 Structures 13
2.2.3.1 VOID * 13
2.2.3.2 char 13
2.2.3.3 UTIME 13
2.2.3.4 NTTIME 13
2.2.3.5 DOM SID (domain SID structure) 13
2.2.3.6 STR (string) 14
2.2.3.7 UNIHDR (unicode string header) 14

v
vi Contents

2.2.3.8 UNIHDR2 (unicode string header plus buffer

pointer) 14
2.2.3.9 UNISTR (unicode string) 14
2.2.3.10 NAME (length-indicated unicode string) 14
2.2.3.11 UNISTR2 (aligned unicode string) 15
2.2.3.12 OBJ ATTR (object attributes) 15
2.2.3.13 POL HND (LSA policy handle) 16
2.2.3.14 DOM SID2 (domain SID structure, SIDS stored
in unicode) 16
2.2.3.15 DOM RID (domain RID structure) 16
2.2.3.16 LOG INFO (server, account, client structure) 16
2.2.3.17 CLNT SRV (server, client names structure) 17
2.2.3.18 CREDS (credentials + time stamp) 17
2.2.3.19 CLNT INFO2 (server, client structure, client
credentials) 18
2.2.3.20 CLNT INFO (server, account, client struc-
ture, client credentials) 18
2.2.3.21 ID INFO 1 (id info structure, auth level 1) 18
2.2.3.22 SAM INFO (sam logon/logoff id info struc-
ture) 19
2.2.3.23 GID (group id info) 20
2.2.3.24 DOM REF (domain reference info) 20
2.2.3.25 DOM INFO (domain info, levels 3 and 5 are
the same)) 21
2.2.3.26 USER INFO (user logon info) 21
2.2.3.27 SH INFO 1 PTR (pointers to level 1 share
info strings) 24
2.2.3.28 SH INFO 1 STR (level 1 share info strings) 24
2.2.3.29 SHARE INFO 1 CTR 24
2.2.3.30 SERVER INFO 101 25
2.3 MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 27
2.3.1 MSRPC Pipes 27
2.3.2 Header 29
2.3.2.1 RPC Packet for request, response, bind and
bind acknowledgement 29
2.3.2.2 Interface identification 30
2.3.2.3 RPC Iface RW 30
2.3.2.4 RPC ReqBind RW 30
2.3.2.5 RPC Address RW 31
2.3.2.6 RPC ResBind RW 31
Contents vii

2.3.2.7 RPC ReqNorm RW 32

2.3.2.8 RPC ResNorm RW 33
2.3.3 Tail 33
2.3.4 RPC Bind / Bind Ack 33
2.3.5 NTLSA Transact Named Pipe 34
2.3.6 LSA Open Policy 35
2.3.6.1 Request 35
2.3.6.2 Response 36
2.3.7 LSA Query Info Policy 36
2.3.7.1 Request 36
2.3.7.2 Response 36
2.3.8 LSA Enumerate Trusted Domains 37
2.3.8.1 Request 37
2.3.8.2 Response 37
2.3.9 LSA Open Secret 37
2.3.9.1 Request 37
2.3.9.2 Response 37
2.3.10 LSA Close 38
2.3.10.1 Request 38
2.3.10.2 Response 38
2.3.11 LSA Lookup SIDS 38
2.3.11.1 Request 38
2.3.11.2 Response 39
2.3.12 LSA Lookup Names 39
2.3.12.1 Request 39
2.3.12.2 Response 40
2.4 NETLOGON rpc Transact Named Pipe 40
2.4.1 LSA Request Challenge 41
2.4.1.1 Request 42
2.4.1.2 Response 42
2.4.2 LSA Authenticate 2 42
2.4.2.1 Request 42
2.4.2.2 Response 43
2.4.3 LSA Server Password Set 43
2.4.3.1 Request 43
2.4.3.2 Response 43
2.4.4 LSA SAM Logon 44
2.4.4.1 Request 44
2.4.4.2 Response 44
2.4.5 LSA SAM Logoff 45
viii Contents

2.4.5.1 Request 45
2.4.5.2 Response 45
2.5 \\MAILSLOT\NET\NTLOGON 45
2.5.1 Query for PDC 45
2.5.1.1 Request 45
2.5.1.2 Response 46
2.5.2 SAM Logon 47
2.5.2.1 Request 47
2.5.2.2 Response 48
2.6 SRVSVC Transact Named Pipe 48
2.6.1 Net Share Enum 49
2.6.1.1 Request 49
2.6.1.2 Response 49
2.6.2 Net Server Get Info 50
2.6.2.1 Request 50
2.6.2.2 Response 50
2.7 Cryptographic side of NT Domain Authentication 50
2.7.1 Definitions 50
2.7.2 Protocol 51
2.7.3 Comments 52
2.8 SIDs and RIDs 53
2.8.1 Well-known SIDs 53
2.8.1.1 Universal well-known SIDs 53
2.8.1.2 NT well-known SIDs 54
2.8.2 Well-known RIDS 55
2.8.2.1 Well-known RID users 55
2.8.2.2 Well-known RID groups 55
2.8.2.3 Well-known RID aliases 55

Part II Samba Basics 55

Chapter 3 SAMBA ARCHITECTURE 57

3.1 Introduction 57
3.2 Multithreading and Samba 57
3.3 Threading smbd 58
3.4 Threading nmbd 58
3.5 nbmd Design 59

Chapter 4 THE SAMBA DEBUG SYSTEM 60

Contents ix

4.1 New Output Syntax 60

4.2 The DEBUG() Macro 61
4.3 The DEBUGADD() Macro 63
4.4 The DEBUGLVL() Macro 63
4.5 New Functions 64
4.5.1 dbgtext() 64
4.5.2 dbghdr() 65
4.5.3 format debug text() 65

Chapter 5 SAMBA INTERNALS 66

5.1 Character Handling 66
5.2 The new functions 66
5.3 Macros in byteorder.h 68
5.3.1 CVAL(buf,pos) 68
5.3.2 PVAL(buf,pos) 68
5.3.3 SCVAL(buf,pos,val) 68
5.3.4 SVAL(buf,pos) 68
5.3.5 IVAL(buf,pos) 68
5.3.6 SVALS(buf,pos) 68
5.3.7 IVALS(buf,pos) 69
5.3.8 SSVAL(buf,pos,val) 69
5.3.9 SIVAL(buf,pos,val) 69
5.3.10 SSVALS(buf,pos,val) 69
5.3.11 SIVALS(buf,pos,val) 69
5.3.12 RSVAL(buf,pos) 69
5.3.13 RIVAL(buf,pos) 69
5.3.14 RSSVAL(buf,pos,val) 70
5.3.15 RSIVAL(buf,pos,val) 70
5.4 LAN Manager Samba API 70
5.4.1 Parameters 70
5.4.2 Return value 71
5.5 Code character table 72

Chapter 6 CODING SUGGESTIONS 74

Chapter 7 CONTRIBUTING CODE 78

Chapter 8 MODULES 80
8.1 Advantages 80
8.2 Loading modules 80
x Contents

8.2.1 Static modules 80

8.2.2 Shared modules 81
8.3 Writing modules 81
8.3.1 Static/Shared selection in configure.in 82

Part III Samba Subsystems 83

Chapter 9 RPC PLUGGABLE MODULES 85

9.1 About 85
9.2 General Overview 85

Chapter 10 VFS MODULES 87

10.1 The Samba (Posix) VFS layer 87
10.1.1 The general interface 88
10.1.2 Possible VFS operation layers 92
10.2 The Interaction between the Samba VFS subsystem and the
modules 93
10.2.1 Initialization and registration 93
10.2.2 How the Modules handle per connection data 94
10.3 Upgrading to the New VFS Interface 98
10.3.1 Upgrading from 2.2.* and 3.0aplha modules 98
10.4 Some Notes 104
10.4.1 Implement TRANSPARENT functions 104
10.4.2 Implement OPAQUE functions 105

Chapter 11 THE SMB.CONF FILE 106

11.1 Lexical Analysis 106
11.1.1 Handling of Whitespace 107
11.1.2 Handling of Line Continuation 107
11.1.3 Line Continuation Quirks 108
11.2 Syntax 109
11.2.1 About params.c 109

Chapter 12 SAMBA WINS INTERNALS 110

12.1 WINS Failover 110

Chapter 13 LANMAN AND NT PASSWORD ENCRYPTION112

13.1 Introduction 112
13.2 How does it work? 112
13.3 The smbpasswd file 113
Contents 1

Part IV Debugging and tracing 115

Chapter 14 TRACING SAMBA SYSTEM CALLS 117

Chapter 15 SAMBA PRINTING INTERNALS 120

15.1 Abstract 120
15.2 Printing Interface to Various Back ends 120
15.3 Print Queue TDB’s 121
15.4 ChangeID and Client Caching of Printer Information 123
15.5 Windows NT/2K Printer Change Notify 123

Part V Appendices 125

Chapter 16 NOTES TO PACKAGERS 127

16.1 Versioning 127
16.2 Modules 127
 Part I

The protocol
Chapter 1

NETBIOS IN A UNIX WORLD

1.1 Introduction

This is a short document that describes some of the issues that confront a
SMB implementation on unix, and how Samba copes with them. They may
help people who are looking at unix<->PC interoperability.
It was written to help out a person who was writing a paper on unix to PC
connectivity.

1.2 Usernames

The SMB protocol has only a loose username concept. Early SMB pro-
tocols (such as CORE and COREPLUS) have no username concept at all.
Even in later protocols clients often attempt operations (particularly printer
operations) without first validating a username on the server.
Unix security is based around username/password pairs. A unix box should
not allow clients to do any substantive operation without some sort of vali-
dation.
The problem mostly manifests itself when the unix server is in ”share level”
security mode. This is the default mode as the alternative ”user level”
security mode usually forces a client to connect to the server as the same
user for each connected share, which is inconvenient in many sites.
In ”share level” security the client normally gives a username in the ”session
setup” protocol, but does not supply an accompanying password. The client
then connects to resources using the ”tree connect” protocol, and supplies a
password. The problem is that the user on the PC types the username and

3
4 NetBIOS in a Unix World Chapter 1

the password in different contexts, unaware that they need to go together to

give access to the server. The username is normally the one the user typed in
when they ”logged onto” the PC (this assumes Windows for Workgroups).
The password is the one they chose when connecting to the disk or printer.
The user often chooses a totally different username for their login as for the
drive connection. Often they also want to access different drives as different
usernames. The unix server needs some way of divining the correct username
to combine with each password.
Samba tries to avoid this problem using several methods. These succeed in
the vast majority of cases. The methods include username maps, the ser-
vice%user syntax, the saving of session setup usernames for later validation
and the derivation of the username from the service name (either directly
or via the user= option).

1.3 File Ownership

The commonly used SMB protocols have no way of saying ”you can’t do
that because you don’t own the file”. They have, in fact, no concept of file
ownership at all.
This brings up all sorts of interesting problems. For example, when you copy
a file to a unix drive, and the file is world writeable but owned by another
user the file will transfer correctly but will receive the wrong date. This is
because the utime() call under unix only succeeds for the owner of the file,
or root, even if the file is world writeable. For security reasons Samba does
all file operations as the validated user, not root, so the utime() fails. This
can stuff up shared development diectories as programs like ”make” will not
get file time comparisons right.
There are several possible solutions to this problem, including username
mapping, and forcing a specific username for particular shares.

1.4 Passwords

Many SMB clients uppercase passwords before sending them. I have no idea
why they do this. Interestingly WfWg uppercases the password only if the
server is running a protocol greater than COREPLUS, so obviously it isn’t
just the data entry routines that are to blame.
Section 1.5. Locking 5

Unix passwords are case sensitive. So if users use mixed case passwords they
are in trouble.

Samba can try to cope with this by either using the ”password level” option
which causes Samba to try the offered password with up to the specified
number of case changes, or by using the ”password server” option which
allows Samba to do its validation via another machine (typically a WinNT
server).

Samba supports the password encryption method used by SMB clients. Note
that the use of password encryption in Microsoft networking leads to pass-
word hashes that are ”plain text equivalent”. This means that it is *VERY*
important to ensure that the Samba smbpasswd file containing these pass-
word hashes is only readable by the root user. See the documentation EN-
CRYPTION.txt for more details.

1.5 Locking

Since samba 2.2, samba supports other types of locking as well. This section
is outdated.

The locking calls available under a DOS/Windows environment are much

richer than those available in unix. This means a unix server (like Samba)
choosing to use the standard fcntl() based unix locking calls to implement
SMB locking has to improvise a bit.

One major problem is that dos locks can be in a 32 bit (unsigned) range.
Unix locking calls are 32 bits, but are signed, giving only a 31 bit range.
Unfortunately OLE2 clients use the top bit to select a locking range used
for OLE semaphores.

To work around this problem Samba compresses the 32 bit range into 31 bits
by appropriate bit shifting. This seems to work but is not ideal. In a future
version a separate SMB lockd may be added to cope with the problem.

It also doesn’t help that many unix lockd daemons are very buggy and
crash at the slightest provocation. They normally go mostly unused in a
unix environment because few unix programs use byte range locking. The
stress of huge numbers of lock requests from dos/windows clients can kill
the daemon on some systems.
6 NetBIOS in a Unix World Chapter 1

The second major problem is the ”opportunistic locking” requested by some

clients. If a client requests opportunistic locking then it is asking the server
to notify it if anyone else tries to do something on the same file, at which
time the client will say if it is willing to give up its lock. Unix has no simple
way of implementing opportunistic locking, and currently Samba has no
support for it.

1.6 Deny Modes

When a SMB client opens a file it asks for a particular ”deny mode” to be
placed on the file. These modes (DENY NONE, DENY READ, DENY WRITE,
DENY ALL, DENY FCB and DENY DOS) specify what actions should
be allowed by anyone else who tries to use the file at the same time. If
DENY READ is placed on the file, for example, then any attempt to open
the file for reading should fail.
Unix has no equivalent notion. To implement this Samba uses either lock
files based on the files inode and placed in a separate lock directory or a
shared memory implementation. The lock file method is clumsy and con-
sumes processing and file resources, the shared memory implementation is
vastly prefered and is turned on by default for those systems that support
it.

1.7 Trapdoor UIDs

A SMB session can run with several uids on the one socket. This happens
when a user connects to two shares with different usernames. To cope with
this the unix server needs to switch uids within the one process. On some
unixes (such as SCO) this is not possible. This means that on those unixes
the client is restricted to a single uid.
Note that you can also get the ”trapdoor uid” message for other reasons.
Please see the FAQ for details.

1.8 Port numbers

There is a convention that clients on sockets use high ”unprivileged” port

numbers (>1000) and connect to servers on low ”privilegedg” port numbers.
Section 1.9. Protocol Complexity 7

This is enforced in Unix as non-root users can’t open a socket for listening
on port numbers less than 1000.

Most PC based SMB clients (such as WfWg and WinNT) don’t follow this
convention completely. The main culprit is the netbios nameserving on udp
port 137. Name query requests come from a source port of 137. This is
a problem when you combine it with the common firewalling technique of
not allowing incoming packets on low port numbers. This means that these
clients can’t query a netbios nameserver on the other side of a low port
based firewall.

The problem is more severe with netbios node status queries. I’ve found that
WfWg, Win95 and WinNT3.5 all respond to netbios node status queries on
port 137 no matter what the source port was in the request. This works
between machines that are both using port 137, but it means it’s not possible
for a unix user to do a node status request to any of these OSes unless they
are running as root. The answer comes back, but it goes to port 137 which
the unix user can’t listen on. Interestingly WinNT3.1 got this right - it
sends node status responses back to the source port in the request.

1.9 Protocol Complexity

There are many ”protocol levels” in the SMB protocol. It seems that each
time new functionality was added to a Microsoft operating system, they
added the equivalent functions in a new protocol level of the SMB protocol
to ”externalise” the new capabilities.

This means the protocol is very ”rich”, offering many ways of doing each
file operation. This means SMB servers need to be complex and large. It
also means it is very difficult to make them bug free. It is not just Samba
that suffers from this problem, other servers such as WinNT don’t support
every variation of every call and it has almost certainly been a headache for
MS developers to support the myriad of SMB calls that are available.

There are about 65 ”top level” operations in the SMB protocol (things like
SMBread and SMBwrite). Some of these include hundreds of sub-functions
(SMBtrans has at least 120 sub-functions, like DosPrintQAdd and NetSes-
sionEnum). All of them take several options that can change the way they
work. Many take dozens of possible ”information levels” that change the
structures that need to be returned. Samba supports all but 2 of the ”top
8 NetBIOS in a Unix World Chapter 1

level” functions. It supports only 8 (so far) of the SMBtrans sub-functions.

Even NT doesn’t support them all.
Samba currently supports up to the ”NT LM 0.12” protocol, which is the
one preferred by Win95 and WinNT3.5. Luckily this protocol level has a
”capabilities” field which specifies which super-duper new-fangled options
the server suports. This helps to make the implementation of this protocol
level much easier.
There is also a problem with the SMB specications. SMB is a X/Open spec,
but the X/Open book is far from ideal, and fails to cover many important
issues, leaving much to the imagination. Microsoft recently renamed the
SMB protocol CIFS (Common Internet File System) and have published
new specifications. These are far superior to the old X/Open documents but
there are still undocumented calls and features. This specification is actively
being worked on by a CIFS developers mailing list hosted by Microsft.
Chapter 2

NT DOMAIN RPC’S

2.1 Introduction

This document contains information to provide an NT workstation with

login services, without the need for an NT server. It is the sgml version
of <http://mailhost.cb1.com/~lkcl/cifsntdomain.txt>, controlled by
Luke.
It should be possible to select a domain instead of a workgroup (in the
NT workstation’s TCP/IP settings) and after the obligatory reboot, type
in a username, password, select a domain and successfully log in. I would
appreciate any feedback on your experiences with this process, and any
comments, corrections and additions to this document.
The packets described here can be easily derived from (and are probably
better understood using) Netmon.exe. You will need to use the version of
Netmon that matches your system, in order to correctly decode the NETLO-
GON, lsarpc and srvsvc Transact pipes. This document is derived from NT
Service Pack 1 and its corresponding version of Netmon. It is intended that
an annotated packet trace be produced, which will likely be more instructive
than this document.
Also needed, to fully implement NT Domain Login Services, is the document
describing the cryptographic part of the NT authentication. This document
is available from comp.protocols.smb; from the ntsecurity.net digest and
from the samba digest, amongst other sources.
A copy is available from:
<http://ntbugtraq.rc.on.ca/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind9708;L=ntbugtraq;
O=A;P=2935>

9
10 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

<http://mailhost.cb1.com/~lkcl/crypt.html>

A c-code implementation, provided by Linus Nordberg1 of this protocol is

available from:

<http://samba.org/cgi-bin/mfs/01/digest/1997/97aug/0391.html>

<http://mailhost.cb1.com/~lkcl/crypt.txt>

Also used to provide debugging information is the Check Build version of NT

workstation, and enabling full debugging in NETLOGON. This is achieved
by setting the following REG SZ registry key to 0x1ffffff:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters

Incorrect direct editing of the registry can cause your machine to fail. Then
again, so can incorrect implementation of this protocol. See ”Liability:”
above.

Bear in mind that each packet over-the-wire will have its origin in an API
call. Therefore, there are likely to be structures, enumerations and defines
that are usefully documented elsewhere.

This document is by no means complete or authoritative. Missing sections

include, but are not limited to:

1. Mappings of RIDs to usernames (and vice-versa).

2. What a User ID is and what a Group ID is.

3. The exact meaning/definition of various magic constants or enumera-

tions.

4. The reply error code and use of that error code when a workstation
becomes a member of a domain (to be described later). Failure to re-
turn this error code will make the workstation report that it is already
a member of the domain.

5. the cryptographic side of the NetrServerPasswordSet command, which

would allow the workstation to change its password. This password is
used to generate the long-term session key. [It is possible to reject this
command, and keep the default workstation password].

1
<mailto:linus@incolumitas.se>
Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 11

2.1.1 Sources
cket Traces from Netmonitor (Service Pack 1 and above)
ul Ashton and Luke Leighton’s other ”NT Domain” doc.
FS documentation - cifs6.txt
FS documentation - cifsrap2.txt

2.1.2 Credits
Paul Ashton: loads of work with Net Monitor; understanding the NT authentication system; reference imp
Duncan Stansfield: low-level analysis of MSRPC Pipes.
Linus Nordberg: producing c-code from Paul’s crypto spec.
Windows Sourcer development team

2.2 Notes and Structures

2.2.1 Notes

1. In the SMB Transact pipes, some ”Structures”, described here, ap-

pear to be 4-byte aligned with the SMB header, at their start. Ex-
actly which ”Structures” need aligning is not precisely known or doc-
umented.
2. In the UDP NTLOGON Mailslots, some ”Structures”, described here,
appear to be 2-byte aligned with the start of the mailslot, at their
start.
3. Domain SID is of the format S-revision-version-auth1-auth2...authN.
e.g S-1-5-123-456-789-123-456. the 5 could be a sub-revision.
4. any undocumented buffer pointers must be non-zero if the string buffer
it refers to contains characters. exactly what value they should be is
unknown. 0x0000 0002 seems to do the trick to indicate that the
buffer exists. a NULL buffer pointer indicates that the string buffer is
of zero length. If the buffer pointer is NULL, then it is suspected that
the structure it refers to is NOT put into (or taken out of) the SMB
data stream. This is empirically derived from, for example, the LSA
SAM Logon response packet, where if the buffer pointer is NULL, the
user information is not inserted into the data stream. Exactly what
happens with an array of buffer pointers is not known, although an
educated guess can be made.
12 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

5. an array of structures (a container) appears to have a count and a

pointer. if the count is zero, the pointer is also zero. no further data is
put into or taken out of the SMB data stream. if the count is non-zero,
then the pointer is also non-zero. immediately following the pointer is
the count again, followed by an array of container sub-structures. the
count appears a third time after the last sub-structure.

2.2.2 Enumerations

2.2.2.1 MSRPC Header type

command number in the msrpc packet header

MSRPC Request: 0x00

MSRPC Response: 0x02

MSRPC Bind: 0x0B

MSRPC BindAck: 0x0C

2.2.2.2 MSRPC Packet info

The meaning of these flags is undocumented

FirstFrag: 0x01

LastFrag: 0x02

NotaFrag: 0x04

RecRespond: 0x08

NoMultiplex: 0x10
Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 13

NotForIdemp: 0x20

NotforBcast: 0x40

NoUuid: 0x80

2.2.3 Structures

2.2.3.1 VOID *

sizeof VOID* is 32 bits.

2.2.3.2 char

sizeof char is 8 bits.

2.2.3.3 UTIME

UTIME is 32 bits, indicating time in seconds since 01jan1970. documented

in cifs6.txt (section 3.5 page, page 30).

2.2.3.4 NTTIME

NTTIME is 64 bits. documented in cifs6.txt (section 3.5 page, page 30).

2.2.3.5 DOM SID (domain SID structure)

UINT32 num of sub-authorities in domain SID

UINT8 SID revision number

UINT8 num of sub-authorities in domain SID

14 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

UINT8[6] 6 bytes for domain SID - Identifier Authority.

UINT16[n subauths] domain SID sub-authorities

Note: the domain SID is documented elsewhere.

2.2.3.6 STR (string)

STR (string) is a char[] : a null-terminated string of ascii characters.

2.2.3.7 UNIHDR (unicode string header)

UINT16 length of unicode string

UINT16 max length of unicode string

UINT32 4 - undocumented.

2.2.3.8 UNIHDR2 (unicode string header plus buffer pointer)

UNIHDR unicode string header

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

2.2.3.9 UNISTR (unicode string)

UINT16[] null-terminated string of unicode characters.

2.2.3.10 NAME (length-indicated unicode string)

UINT32 length of unicode string

Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 15

UINT16[] null-terminated string of unicode characters.

2.2.3.11 UNISTR2 (aligned unicode string)

UINT8[] padding to get unicode string 4-byte aligned with the start of the
SMB header.

UINT32 max length of unicode string

UINT32 0 - undocumented

UINT32 length of unicode string

UINT16[] string of uncode characters

2.2.3.12 OBJ ATTR (object attributes)

UINT32 0x18 - length (in bytes) including the length field.

VOID* 0 - root directory (pointer)

VOID* 0 - object name (pointer)

UINT32 0 - attributes (undocumented)

VOID* 0 - security descriptior (pointer)

UINT32 0 - security quality of service

16 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

2.2.3.13 POL HND (LSA policy handle)

char[20] policy handle

2.2.3.14 DOM SID2 (domain SID structure, SIDS stored in unicode)

UINT32 5 - SID type

UINT32 0 - undocumented

UNIHDR2 domain SID unicode string header

UNISTR domain SID unicode string

Note: there is a conflict between the unicode string header and the unicode
string itself as to which to use to indicate string length. this will need to be
resolved.
Note: the SID type indicates, for example, an alias; a well-known group etc.
this is documented somewhere.

2.2.3.15 DOM RID (domain RID structure)

UINT32 5 - well-known SID. 1 - user SID (see ShowACLs)

UINT32 5 - undocumented

UINT32 domain RID

UINT32 0 - domain index out of above reference domains

2.2.3.16 LOG INFO (server, account, client structure)

Note: logon server name starts with two ’\’ characters and is upper case.
Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 17

Note: account name is the logon client name from the LSA Request Chal-
lenge, with a $ on the end of it, in upper case.

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UNISTR2 logon server unicode string

UNISTR2 account name unicode string

UINT16 sec chan - security channel type

UNISTR2 logon client machine unicode string

2.2.3.17 CLNT SRV (server, client names structure)

Note: logon server name starts with two ’\’ characters and is upper case.

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UNISTR2 logon server unicode string

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UNISTR2 logon client machine unicode string

2.2.3.18 CREDS (credentials + time stamp)

char[8] credentials

UTIME time stamp

18 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

2.2.3.19 CLNT INFO2 (server, client structure, client credentials)

Note: whenever this structure appears in a request, you must take a copy of
the client-calculated credentials received, because they will beused in subse-
quent credential checks. the presumed intention is to maintain an authenti-
cated request/response trail.

CLNT SRV client and server names

UINT8[] ???? padding, for 4-byte alignment with SMB header.

VOID* pointer to client credentials.

CREDS client-calculated credentials + client time

2.2.3.20 CLNT INFO (server, account, client structure, client creden-

tials)

Note: whenever this structure appears in a request, you must take a copy of
the client-calculated credentials received, because they will be used in subse-
quent credential checks. the presumed intention is to maintain an authenti-
cated request/response trail.

LOG INFO logon account info

CREDS client-calculated credentials + client time

2.2.3.21 ID INFO 1 (id info structure, auth level 1)

VOID* ptr id info 1

UNIHDR domain name unicode header

UINT32 param control

Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 19

UINT64 logon ID

UNIHDR user name unicode header

UNIHDR workgroup name unicode header

char[16] arc4 LM OWF Password

char[16] arc4 NT OWF Password

UNISTR2 domain name unicode string

UNISTR2 user name unicode string

UNISTR2 workstation name unicode string

2.2.3.22 SAM INFO (sam logon/logoff id info structure)

Note: presumably, the return credentials is supposedly for the server to verify
that the credential chain hasn’t been compromised.

CLNT INFO2 client identification/authentication info

VOID* pointer to return credentials.

CRED return credentials - ignored.

UINT16 logon level

UINT16 switch value

20 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

switch (switch_value)
case 1:
{
ID_INFO_1 id_info_1;
}

2.2.3.23 GID (group id info)

UINT32 group id

UINT32 user attributes (only used by NT 3.1 and 3.51)

2.2.3.24 DOM REF (domain reference info)

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer.

UINT32 num referenced domains?

VOID* undocumented domain name buffer pointer.

UINT32 32 - max number of entries

UINT32 4 - num referenced domains?

UNIHDR2 domain name unicode string header

UNIHDR2[num ref doms-1] referenced domain unicode string headers

UNISTR domain name unicode string

Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 21

DOM SID[num ref doms] referenced domain SIDs

2.2.3.25 DOM INFO (domain info, levels 3 and 5 are the same))

UINT8[] ??? padding to get 4-byte alignment with start of SMB header

UINT16 domain name string length * 2

UINT16 domain name string length * 2

VOID* undocumented domain name string buffer pointer

VOID* undocumented domain SID string buffer pointer

UNISTR2 domain name (unicode string)

DOM SID domain SID

2.2.3.26 USER INFO (user logon info)

Note: it would be nice to know what the 16 byte user session key is for.

NTTIME logon time

NTTIME logoff time

NTTIME kickoff time

NTTIME password last set time

NTTIME password can change time

22 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

NTTIME password must change time

UNIHDR username unicode string header

UNIHDR user’s full name unicode string header

UNIHDR logon script unicode string header

UNIHDR profile path unicode string header

UNIHDR home directory unicode string header

UNIHDR home directory drive unicode string header

UINT16 logon count

UINT16 bad password count

UINT32 User ID

UINT32 Group ID

UINT32 num groups

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer to groups.

UINT32 user flags

char[16] user session key

UNIHDR logon server unicode string header

Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 23

UNIHDR logon domain unicode string header

VOID* undocumented logon domain id pointer

char[40] 40 undocumented padding bytes. future expansion?

UINT32 0 - num other sids?

VOID* NULL - undocumented pointer to other domain SIDs.

UNISTR2 username unicode string

UNISTR2 user’s full name unicode string

UNISTR2 logon script unicode string

UNISTR2 profile path unicode string

UNISTR2 home directory unicode string

UNISTR2 home directory drive unicode string

UINT32 num groups

GID[num groups] group info

UNISTR2 logon server unicode string

UNISTR2 logon domain unicode string

DOM SID domain SID

24 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

DOM SID[num sids] other domain SIDs?

2.2.3.27 SH INFO 1 PTR (pointers to level 1 share info strings)

Note: see cifsrap2.txt section5, page 10.

0 for shi1 type indicates a Disk.
1 for shi1 type indicates a Print Queue.
2 for shi1 type indicates a Device.
3 for shi1 type indicates an IPC pipe.
0x8000 0000 (top bit set in shi1 type) indicates a hidden share.

VOID* shi1 netname - pointer to net name

UINT32 shi1 type - type of share. 0 - undocumented.

VOID* shi1 remark - pointer to comment.

2.2.3.28 SH INFO 1 STR (level 1 share info strings)

UNISTR2 shi1 netname - unicode string of net name

UNISTR2 shi1 remark - unicode string of comment.

2.2.3.29 SHARE INFO 1 CTR

share container with 0 entries:

UINT32 0 - EntriesRead

UINT32 0 - Buffer
share container with > 0 entries:
Section 2.2. Notes and Structures 25

UINT32 EntriesRead

UINT32 non-zero - Buffer

UINT32 EntriesRead

SH INFO 1 PTR[EntriesRead] share entry pointers

SH INFO 1 STR[EntriesRead] share entry strings

UINT8[] padding to get unicode string 4-byte aligned with start of the
SMB header.

UINT32 EntriesRead

UINT32 0 - padding

2.2.3.30 SERVER INFO 101

Note: see cifs6.txt section 6.4 - the fields described therein will be of assis-
tance here. for example, the type listed below is the same as fServerType,
which is described in 6.4.1.

SV TYPE WORKSTATION 0x00000001 All workstations

SV TYPE SERVER 0x00000002 All servers

SV TYPE SQLSERVER 0x00000004 Any server running with SQL server

SV TYPE DOMAIN CTRL 0x00000008 Primary domain controller

SV TYPE DOMAIN BAKCTRL 0x00000010 Backup domain controller

26 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

SV TYPE TIME SOURCE 0x00000020 Server running the timesource

service

SV TYPE AFP 0x00000040 Apple File Protocol servers

SV TYPE NOVELL 0x00000080 Novell servers

SV TYPE DOMAIN MEMBER 0x00000100 Domain Member

SV TYPE PRINTQ SERVER 0x00000200 Server sharing print queue

SV TYPE DIALIN SERVER 0x00000400 Server running dialin service.

SV TYPE XENIX SERVER 0x00000800 Xenix server

SV TYPE NT 0x00001000 NT server

SV TYPE WFW 0x00002000 Server running Windows for

SV TYPE SERVER NT 0x00008000 Windows NT non DC server

SV TYPE POTENTIAL BROWSER 0x00010000 Server that can run

the browser service

SV TYPE BACKUP BROWSER 0x00020000 Backup browser server

SV TYPE MASTER BROWSER 0x00040000 Master browser server

SV TYPE DOMAIN MASTER 0x00080000 Domain Master Browser

server
Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 27

SV TYPE LOCAL LIST ONLY 0x40000000 Enumerate only entries marked

”local”

SV TYPE DOMAIN ENUM 0x80000000 Enumerate Domains. The

pszServer and pszDomain parameters must be NULL.

UINT32 500 - platform id

VOID* pointer to name

UINT32 5 - major version

UINT32 4 - minor version

UINT32 type (SV TYPE ... bit field)

VOID* pointer to comment

UNISTR2 sv101 name - unicode string of server name

UNISTR2 sv 101 comment - unicode string of server comment.

UINT8[] padding to get unicode string 4-byte aligned with start of the
SMB header.

2.3 MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe

For details on the SMB Transact Named Pipe, see cifs6.txt

2.3.1 MSRPC Pipes

The MSRPC is conducted over an SMB Transact Pipe with a name of

\PIPE\. You must first obtain a 16 bit file handle, by sending a SMBopenX
28 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

with the pipe name \PIPE\srvsvc for example. You can then perform an
SMB Trans, and must carry out an SMBclose on the file handle once you
are finished.

Trans Requests must be sent with two setup UINT16s, no UINT16 params
(none known about), and UINT8 data parameters sufficient to contain the
MSRPC header, and MSRPC data. The first UINT16 setup parameter must
be either 0x0026 to indicate an RPC, or 0x0001 to indicate Set Named Pipe
Handle state. The second UINT16 parameter must be the file handle for
the pipe, obtained above.

The Data section for an API Command of 0x0026 (RPC pipe) in the Trans
Request is the RPC Header, followed by the RPC Data. The Data section
for an API Command of 0x0001 (Set Named Pipe Handle state) is two bytes.
The only value seen for these two bytes is 0x00 0x43.

MSRPC Responses are sent as response data inside standard SMB Trans
responses, with the MSRPC Header, MSRPC Data and MSRPC tail.

It is suspected that the Trans Requests will need to be at least 2-byte aligned
(probably 4-byte). This is standard practice for SMBs. It is also independent
of the observed 4-byte alignments with the start of the MSRPC header,
including the 4-byte alignment between the MSRPC header and the MSRPC
data.

First, an SMBtconX connection is made to the IPC$ share. The connection

must be made using encrypted passwords, not clear-text. Then, an SM-
BopenX is made on the pipe. Then, a Set Named Pipe Handle State must
be sent, after which the pipe is ready to accept API commands. Lastly, and
SMBclose is sent.

To be resolved:

lkcl/01nov97 there appear to be two additional bytes after the null-terminated

\PIPE\ name for the RPC pipe. Values seen so far are listed below:

initial SMBopenX request: RPC API command 0x26 params:

"\\PIPE\\lsarpc" 0x65 0x63; 0x72 0x70; 0x44 0x65;
"\\PIPE\\srvsvc" 0x73 0x76; 0x4E 0x00; 0x5C 0x43;
Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 29

2.3.2 Header

[section to be rewritten, following receipt of work by Duncan Stansfield]

Interesting note: if you set packed data representation to 0x0100 0000 then
all 4-byte and 2-byte word ordering is turned around!
The start of each of the NTLSA and NETLOGON named pipes begins with:
offset: 00 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: 5 - RPC major version
offset: 01 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: 0 - RPC minor version
offset: 02 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: 2 - RPC response packet
offset: 03 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: 3 - (FirstFrag bit-wise or
with LastFrag)
offset: 04 Variable type: UINT32 Variable data: 0x1000 0000 - packed data
representation
offset: 08 Variable type: UINT16 Variable data: fragment length - data size
(bytes) inc header and tail.
offset: 0A Variable type: UINT16 Variable data: 0 - authentication length
offset: 0C Variable type: UINT32 Variable data: call identifier. matches
12th UINT32 of incoming RPC data.
offset: 10 Variable type: UINT32 Variable data: allocation hint - data size
(bytes) minus header and tail.
offset: 14 Variable type: UINT16 Variable data: 0 - presentation context
identifier
offset: 16 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: 0 - cancel count
offset: 17 Variable type: UINT8 Variable data: in replies: 0 - reserved; in
requests: opnum - see #defines.
offset: 18 Variable type: ...... Variable data: start of data (goes on for
allocation hint bytes)

2.3.2.1 RPC Packet for request, response, bind and bind acknowledge-
ment

UINT8 versionmaj reply same as request (0x05)

UINT8 versionmin reply same as request (0x00)

UINT8 type one of the MSRPC Type enums

30 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

UINT8 flags reply same as request (0x00 for Bind, 0x03 for Request)

UINT32 representation reply same as request (0x00000010)

UINT16 fraglength the length of the data section of the SMB trans
packet

UINT16 authlength

UINT32 callid call identifier. (e.g. 0x00149594)

* stub USE TvPacket the remainder of the packet depending on the

”type”

2.3.2.2 Interface identification

the interfaces are numbered. as yet I haven’t seen more than one interface
used on the same pipe name srvsvc

abstract (0x4B324FC8, 0x01D31670, 0x475A7812, 0x88E16EBF, 0x00000003)

transfer (0x8A885D04, 0x11C91CEB, 0x0008E89F, 0x6048102B, 0x00000002)

2.3.2.3 RPC Iface RW

UINT8 byte[16] 16 bytes of number

UINT32 version the interface number

2.3.2.4 RPC ReqBind RW

the remainder of the packet after the header if ”type” was Bind in the
response header, ”type” should be BindAck
Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 31

UINT16 maxtsize maximum transmission fragment size (0x1630)

UINT16 maxrsize max receive fragment size (0x1630)

UINT32 assocgid associated group id (0x0)

UINT32 numelements the number of elements (0x1)

UINT16 contextid presentation context identifier (0x0)

UINT8 numsyntaxes the number of syntaxes (has always been 1?)(0x1)

UINT8[] 4-byte alignment padding, against SMB header

* abstractint USE RPC Iface num and vers. of interface client is using

* transferint USE RPC Iface num and vers. of interface to use for
replies

2.3.2.5 RPC Address RW

UINT16 length length of the string including null terminator

* port USE string the string above in single byte, null terminated form

2.3.2.6 RPC ResBind RW

the response to place after the header in the reply packet

UINT16 maxtsize same as request

32 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

UINT16 maxrsize same as request

UINT32 assocgid zero

* secondaddr USE RPC Address the address string, as described ear-

lier

UINT8[] 4-byte alignment padding, against SMB header

UINT8 numresults the number of results (0x01)

UINT8[] 4-byte alignment padding, against SMB header

UINT16 result result (0x00 = accept)

UINT16 reason reason (0x00 = no reason specified)

* transfersyntax USE RPC Iface the transfer syntax from the request

2.3.2.7 RPC ReqNorm RW

the remainder of the packet after the header for every other other request

UINT32 allochint the size of the stub data in bytes

UINT16 prescontext presentation context identifier (0x0)

UINT16 opnum operation number (0x15)

* stub USE TvPacket a packet dependent on the pipe name (probably

the interface) and the op number)
Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 33

2.3.2.8 RPC ResNorm RW

UINT32 allochint # size of the stub data in bytes

UINT16 prescontext # presentation context identifier (same as request)

UINT8 cancelcount # cancel count? (0x0)

UINT8 reserved # 0 - one byte padding

* stub USE TvPacket # the remainder of the reply

2.3.3 Tail

The end of each of the NTLSA and NETLOGON named pipes ends with:

...... end of data

UINT32 return code

2.3.4 RPC Bind / Bind Ack

RPC Binds are the process of associating an RPC pipe (e.g \PIPE\lsarpc)
with a ”transfer syntax” (see RPC Iface structure). The purpose for doing
this is unknown.

Note: The RPC ResBind SMB Transact request is sent with two uint16
setup parameters. The first is 0x0026; the second is the file handle returned
by the SMBopenX Transact response.

Note: The RPC ResBind members maxtsize, maxrsize and assocgid are the
same in the response as the same members in the RPC ReqBind. The
RPC ResBind member transfersyntax is the same in the response as the
34 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

Note: The RPC ResBind response member secondaddr contains the name
of what is presumed to be the service behind the RPC pipe. The mapping
identified so far is:

initial SMBopenX request: RPC ResBind response:

”\\PIPE\\srvsvc” ”\\PIPE\\ntsvcs”

”\\PIPE\\samr” ”\\PIPE\\lsass”

”\\PIPE\\lsarpc” ”\\PIPE\\lsass”

”\\PIPE\\wkssvc” ”\\PIPE\\wksvcs”

”\\PIPE\\NETLOGON” ”\\PIPE\\NETLOGON”

Note: The RPC Packet fraglength member in both the Bind Request and
Bind Acknowledgment must contain the length of the entire RPC data, in-
cluding the RPC Packet header.

Request:

RPC Packet
RPC ReqBind

Response:

RPC Packet
RPC ResBind

2.3.5 NTLSA Transact Named Pipe

The sequence of actions taken on this pipe are:

Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 35

Establish a connection to the IPC$ share (SMBtconX). use encrypted passwords.

Open an RPC Pipe with the name ”\\PIPE\\lsarpc”. Store the file handle.
Using the file handle, send a Set Named Pipe Handle state to 0x4300.
Send an LSA Open Policy request. Store the Policy Handle.
Using the Policy Handle, send LSA Query Info Policy requests, etc.
Using the Policy Handle, send an LSA Close.
Close the IPC$ share.
Defines for this pipe, identifying the query are:

LSA Open Policy: 0x2c

LSA Query Info Policy: 0x07

LSA Enumerate Trusted Domains: 0x0d

LSA Open Secret: 0xff

LSA Lookup SIDs: 0xfe

LSA Lookup Names: 0xfd

LSA Close: 0x00

2.3.6 LSA Open Policy

Note: The policy handle can be anything you like.

2.3.6.1 Request

VOID* buffer pointer

UNISTR2 server name - unicode string starting with two ’\’s

36 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

OBJ ATTR object attributes

UINT32 1 - desired access

2.3.6.2 Response

POL HND LSA policy handle

return 0 - indicates success

2.3.7 LSA Query Info Policy

Note: The info class in response must be the same as that in the request.

2.3.7.1 Request

POL HND LSA policy handle

UINT16 info class (also a policy handle?)

2.3.7.2 Response

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UINT16 info class (same as info class in request).

switch (info class)

case 3:
case 5:
{
DOM_INFO domain info, levels 3 and 5 (are the same).
Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 37

return 0 - indicates success

2.3.8 LSA Enumerate Trusted Domains

2.3.8.1 Request

no extra data

2.3.8.2 Response

UINT32 0 - enumeration context

UINT32 0 - entries read

UINT32 0 - trust information

return 0x8000 001a - ”no trusted domains” success code

2.3.9 LSA Open Secret

2.3.9.1 Request

no extra data

2.3.9.2 Response

UINT32 0 - undocumented

UINT32 0 - undocumented

UINT32 0 - undocumented
38 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

UINT32 0 - undocumented

UINT32 0 - undocumented
return 0x0C00 0034 - ”no such secret” success code

2.3.10 LSA Close

2.3.10.1 Request

POL HND policy handle to be closed

2.3.10.2 Response

POL HND 0s - closed policy handle (all zeros)

return 0 - indicates success

2.3.11 LSA Lookup SIDS

Note: num entries in response must be same as num entries in request.

2.3.11.1 Request

POL HND LSA policy handle

UINT32 num entries

VOID* undocumented domain SID buffer pointer

VOID* undocumented domain name buffer pointer

Section 2.3. MSRPC over Transact Named Pipe 39

VOID*[num entries] undocumented domain SID pointers to be looked up.

DOM SID[num entries] domain SIDs to be looked up.

char[16] completely undocumented 16 bytes.

2.3.11.2 Response

DOM REF domain reference response

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

DOM SID2[num entries] domain SIDs (from Request, listed above).

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

return 0 - indicates success

2.3.12 LSA Lookup Names

Note: num entries in response must be same as num entries in request.

2.3.12.1 Request

POL HND LSA policy handle

UINT32 num entries

UINT32 num entries

40 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

VOID* undocumented domain SID buffer pointer

VOID* undocumented domain name buffer pointer

NAME[num entries] names to be looked up.

char[] undocumented bytes - falsely translated SID structure?

2.3.12.2 Response

DOM REF domain reference response

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

DOM RID[num entries] domain SIDs (from Request, listed above).

UINT32 num entries (listed above)

return 0 - indicates success

2.4 NETLOGON rpc Transact Named Pipe

The sequence of actions taken on this pipe are:

Section 2.4. NETLOGON rpc Transact Named Pipe 41

tablish a connection to the IPC$ share (SMBtconX). use encrypted passwords.

en an RPC Pipe with the name ”\\PIPE\\NETLOGON”. Store the file handle.
ing the file handle, send a Set Named Pipe Handle state to 0x4300.
eate Client Challenge. Send LSA Request Challenge. Store Server Challenge.
lculate Session Key. Send an LSA Auth 2 Challenge. Store Auth2 Challenge.
lc/Verify Client Creds. Send LSA Srv PW Set. Calc/Verify Server Creds.
lc/Verify Client Creds. Send LSA SAM Logon . Calc/Verify Server Creds.
lc/Verify Client Creds. Send LSA SAM Logoff. Calc/Verify Server Creds.
ose the IPC$ share.

Defines for this pipe, identifying the query are

LSA Request Challenge: 0x04

LSA Server Password Set: 0x06

LSA SAM Logon: 0x02

LSA SAM Logoff: 0x03

LSA Auth 2: 0x0f

LSA Logon Control: 0x0e

2.4.1 LSA Request Challenge

Note: logon server name starts with two ’\’ characters and is upper case.

Note: logon client is the machine, not the user.

Note: the initial LanManager password hash, against which the challenge
is issued, is the machine name itself (lower case). there will becalls issued
(LSA Server Password Set) which will change this, later. refusing these
calls allows you to always deal with the same password (i.e the LM# of the
machine name in lower case).
42 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

2.4.1.1 Request

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

UNISTR2 logon server unicode string

UNISTR2 logon client unicode string

char[8] client challenge

2.4.1.2 Response

char[8] server challenge

return 0 - indicates success

2.4.2 LSA Authenticate 2

Note: in between request and response, calculate the client credentials, and
check them against the client-calculated credentials (this process uses the
previously received client credentials).
Note: neg flags in the response is the same as that in the request.
Note: you must take a copy of the client-calculated credentials received here,
because they will be used in subsequent authentication packets.

2.4.2.1 Request

LOG INFO client identification info

char[8] client-calculated credentials

UINT8[] padding to 4-byte align with start of SMB header.

Section 2.4. NETLOGON rpc Transact Named Pipe 43

UINT32 neg flags - negotiated flags (usual value is 0x0000 01ff)

2.4.2.2 Response

char[8] server credentials.

UINT32 neg flags - same as neg flags in request.

return 0 - indicates success. failure value unknown.

2.4.3 LSA Server Password Set

Note: the new password is suspected to be a DES encryption using the old
password to generate the key.
Note: in between request and response, calculate the client credentials, and
check them against the client-calculated credentials (this process uses the
previously received client credentials).
Note: the server credentials are constructed from the client-calculated cre-
dentials and the client time + 1 second.
Note: you must take a copy of the client-calculated credentials received here,
because they will be used in subsequent authentication packets.

2.4.3.1 Request

CLNT INFO client identification/authentication info

char[] new password - undocumented.

2.4.3.2 Response

CREDS server credentials. server time stamp appears to be ignored.

44 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

return 0 - indicates success; 0xC000 006a indicates failure

2.4.4 LSA SAM Logon

Note: valid user is True iff the username and password hash are valid for
the requested domain.

2.4.4.1 Request

SAM INFO sam id structure

2.4.4.2 Response

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

CREDS server credentials. server time stamp appears to be ignored.

if (valid_user)
{
UINT16 3 - switch value indicating USER_INFO structure.
VOID* non-zero - pointer to USER_INFO structure
USER_INFO user logon information

UINT32 1 - Authoritative response; 0 - Non-Auth?

return 0 - indicates success

}
else
{
UINT16 0 - switch value. value to indicate no user presumed.
VOID* 0x0000 0000 - indicates no USER_INFO structure.

UINT32 1 - Authoritative response; 0 - Non-Auth?

return 0xC000 0064 - NT_STATUS_NO_SUCH_USER.

Section 2.5. \\MAILSLOT\NET\NTLOGON 45

2.4.5 LSA SAM Logoff

Note: presumably, the SAM INFO structure is validated, and a (currently

undocumented) error code returned if the Logoff is invalid.

2.4.5.1 Request

SAM INFO sam id structure

2.4.5.2 Response

VOID* undocumented buffer pointer

CREDS server credentials. server time stamp appears to be ignored.

return 0 - indicates success. undocumented failure indication.

2.5 \\MAILSLOT\NET\NTLOGON

Note: mailslots will contain a response mailslot, to which the response should
be sent. the target NetBIOS name is REQUEST NAME<20>, where RE-
QUEST NAME is the name of the machine that sent the request.

2.5.1 Query for PDC

Note: NTversion, LMNTtoken, LM20token in response are the same as

those given in the request.

2.5.1.1 Request

UINT16 0x0007 - Query for PDC

46 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

STR machine name

STR response mailslot

UINT8[] padding to 2-byte align with start of mailslot.

UNISTR machine name

UINT32 NTversion

UINT16 LMNTtoken

UINT16 LM20token

2.5.1.2 Response

UINT16 0x000A - Respose to Query for PDC

STR machine name (in uppercase)

UINT8[] padding to 2-byte align with start of mailslot.

UNISTR machine name

UNISTR domain name

UINT32 NTversion (same as received in request)

UINT16 LMNTtoken (same as received in request)

Section 2.5. \\MAILSLOT\NET\NTLOGON 47

UINT16 LM20token (same as received in request)

2.5.2 SAM Logon

Note: machine name in response is preceded by two ’\’ characters.

Note: NTversion, LMNTtoken, LM20token in response are the same as
those given in the request.
Note: user name in the response is presumably the same as that in the
request.

2.5.2.1 Request

UINT16 0x0012 - SAM Logon

UINT16 request count

UNISTR machine name

UNISTR user name

STR response mailslot

UINT32 alloweable account

UINT32 domain SID size

char[sid size] domain SID, of sid size bytes.

UINT8[] ???? padding to 4? 2? -byte align with start of mailslot.

UINT32 NTversion
48 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

UINT16 LMNTtoken

UINT16 LM20token

2.5.2.2 Response

UINT16 0x0013 - Response to SAM Logon

UNISTR machine name

UNISTR user name - workstation trust account

UNISTR domain name

UINT32 NTversion

UINT16 LMNTtoken

UINT16 LM20token

2.6 SRVSVC Transact Named Pipe

Defines for this pipe, identifying the query are:

Net Share Enum 0x0f

Net Server Get Info 0x15

Section 2.6. SRVSVC Transact Named Pipe 49

2.6.1 Net Share Enum

Note: share level and switch value in the response are presumably the same
as those in the request.
Note: cifsrap2.txt (section 5) may be of limited assistance here.

2.6.1.1 Request

VOID* pointer (to server name?)

UNISTR2 server name

UINT8[] padding to get unicode string 4-byte aligned with the start of the
SMB header.

UINT32 share level

UINT32 switch value

VOID* pointer to SHARE INFO 1 CTR

SHARE INFO 1 CTR share info with 0 entries

UINT32 preferred maximum length (0xffff ffff)

2.6.1.2 Response

UINT32 share level

UINT32 switch value

VOID* pointer to SHARE INFO 1 CTR

50 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

SHARE INFO 1 CTR share info (only added if share info ptr is non-
zero)
return 0 - indicates success

2.6.2 Net Server Get Info

Note: level is the same value as in the request.

2.6.2.1 Request

UNISTR2 server name

UINT32 switch level

2.6.2.2 Response

UINT32 switch level

VOID* pointer to SERVER INFO 101

SERVER INFO 101 server info (only added if server info ptr is non-zero)
return 0 - indicates success

2.7 Cryptographic side of NT Domain Authentication

2.7.1 Definitions

Add(A1,A2) Intel byte ordered addition of corresponding 4 byte words in

arrays A1 and A2
Section 2.7. Cryptographic side of NT Domain Authentication 51

E(K,D) DES ECB encryption of 8 byte data D using 7 byte key K

lmowf() Lan man hash

ntowf() NT hash

PW md4(machine password) == md4(lsadump $machine.acc) == pwdump(machine$)

(initially) == md4(lmowf(unicode(machine)))

ARC4(K,Lk,D,Ld) ARC4 encryption of data D of length Ld with key K

of length Lk

v[m..n(,l)] subset of v from bytes m to n, optionally padded with zeroes

to length l

Cred(K,D) E(K[7..7,7],E(K[0..6],D)) computes a credential

Time() 4 byte current time

Cc,Cs 8 byte client and server challenges Rc,Rs: 8 byte client and server
credentials

2.7.2 Protocol

C->S ReqChal,Cc
S->C Cs

C & S compute session key Ks = E(PW[9..15],E(PW[0..6],Add(Cc,Cs)))

C: Rc = Cred(Ks,Cc)
52 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

C->S Authenticate,Rc
S: Rs = Cred(Ks,Cs), assert(Rc == Cred(Ks,Cc))
S->C Rs
C: assert(Rs == Cred(Ks,Cs))

On joining the domain the client will optionally attempt to change its pass-
word and the domain controller may refuse to update it depending on reg-
istry settings. This will also occur weekly afterwards.

C: Tc = Time(), Rc’ = Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc)

C->S ServerPasswordSet,Rc’,Tc,arc4(Ks[0..7,16],lmowf(randompassword())
C: Rc = Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc+1)
S: assert(Rc’ == Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc)), Ts = Time()
S: Rs’ = Cred(Ks,Rs+Tc+1)
S->C Rs’,Ts
C: assert(Rs’ == Cred(Ks,Rs+Tc+1))
S: Rs = Rs’

User: U with password P wishes to login to the domain (incidental data

such as workstation and domain omitted)

C: Tc = Time(), Rc’ = Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc)

C->S NetLogonSamLogon,Rc’,Tc,U,arc4(Ks[0..7,16],16,ntowf(P),16), arc4(Ks[0..7,16]
S: assert(Rc’ == Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc)) assert(passwords match those in SAM)
S: Ts = Time()

S->C Cred(Ks,Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc+1)),userinfo(logon script,UID,SIDs,etc)

C: assert(Rs == Cred(Ks,Cred(Rc+Tc+1))
C: Rc = Cred(Ks,Rc+Tc+1)

2.7.3 Comments

On first joining the domain the session key could be computed by anyone
listening in on the network as the machine password has a well known value.
Until the machine is rebooted it will use this session key to encrypt NT
Section 2.8. SIDs and RIDs 53

and LM one way functions of passwords which are password equivalents.

Any user who logs in before the machine has been rebooted a second time
will have their password equivalent exposed. Of course the new machine
password is exposed at this time anyway.
None of the returned user info such as logon script, profile path and SIDs
*appear* to be protected by anything other than the TCP checksum.
The server time stamps appear to be ignored.
The client sends a ReturnAuthenticator in the SamLogon request which I
can’t find a use for. However its time is used as the timestamp returned by
the server.
The password OWFs should NOT be sent over the network reversibly en-
crypted. They should be sent using ARC4(Ks,md4(owf)) with the server
computing the same function using the owf values in the SAM.

2.8 SIDs and RIDs

SIDs and RIDs are well documented elsewhere.

A SID is an NT Security ID (see DOM SID structure). They are of the
form:
revision-NN-SubAuth1-SubAuth2-SubAuth3...
revision-0xNNNNNNNNNNNN-SubAuth1-SubAuth2-SubAuth3...
currently, the SID revision is 1. The Sub-Authorities are known as Relative
IDs (RIDs).

2.8.1 Well-known SIDs

2.8.1.1 Universal well-known SIDs

Null SID S-1-0-0

World S-1-1-0

Local S-1-2-0
54 NT Domain RPC’s Chapter 2

Creator Owner ID S-1-3-0

Creator Group ID S-1-3-1

Creator Owner Server ID S-1-3-2

Creator Group Server ID S-1-3-3

(Non-unique IDs) S-1-4

2.8.1.2 NT well-known SIDs

NT Authority S-1-5

Dialup S-1-5-1

Network S-1-5-2

Batch S-1-5-3

Interactive S-1-5-4

Service S-1-5-6

AnonymousLogon(aka null logon session) S-1-5-7

Proxy S-1-5-8

ServerLogon(aka domain controller account) S-1-5-8

Section 2.8. SIDs and RIDs 55

(Logon IDs) S-1-5-5-X-Y

(NT non-unique IDs) S-1-5-0x15-...

(Built-in domain) s-1-5-0x20

2.8.2 Well-known RIDS

A RID is a sub-authority value, as part of either a SID, or in the case

of Group RIDs, part of the DOM GID structure, in the USER INFO 1
structure, in the LSA SAM Logon response.

2.8.2.1 Well-known RID users

Groupname: DOMAIN USER RID ADMIN ????: 0x0000 RID: 01F4

Groupname: DOMAIN USER RID GUEST ????: 0x0000 RID: 01F5

2.8.2.2 Well-known RID groups

Groupname: DOMAIN GROUP RID ADMINS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0200

Groupname: DOMAIN GROUP RID USERS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0201
Groupname: DOMAIN GROUP RID GUESTS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0202

2.8.2.3 Well-known RID aliases

Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID ADMINS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0220

Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID USERS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0221
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID GUESTS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0222
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID POWER USERS ????: 0x0000 RID:
0223
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID ACCOUNT OPS ????: 0x0000 RID:
0224
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID SYSTEM OPS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0225
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID PRINT OPS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0226
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID BACKUP OPS ????: 0x0000 RID: 0227
Groupname: DOMAIN ALIAS RID REPLICATOR ????: 0x0000 RID: 0228
 Part II

Samba Basics
Chapter 3

SAMBA ARCHITECTURE

3.1 Introduction

This document gives a general overview of how Samba works internally.

The Samba Team has tried to come up with a model which is the best pos-
sible compromise between elegance, portability, security and the constraints
imposed by the very messy SMB and CIFS protocol.
It also tries to answer some of the frequently asked questions such as:
1. Is Samba secure when running on Unix? The xyz platform? What
about the root priveliges issue?
2. Pros and cons of multithreading in various parts of Samba
3. Why not have a separate process for name resolution, WINS, and
browsing?

3.2 Multithreading and Samba

People sometimes tout threads as a uniformly good thing. They are very
nice in their place but are quite inappropriate for smbd. nmbd is another
matter, and multi-threading it would be very nice.
The short version is that smbd is not multithreaded, and alternative servers
that take this approach under Unix (such as Syntax, at the time of writing)
suffer tremendous performance penalties and are less robust. nmbd is not
threaded either, but this is because it is not possible to do it while keeping
code consistent and portable across 35 or more platforms. (This drawback
also applies to threading smbd.)

57
58 Samba Architecture Chapter 3

The longer versions is that there are very good reasons for not making smbd
multi-threaded. Multi-threading would actually make Samba much slower,
less scalable, less portable and much less robust. The fact that we use a
separate process for each connection is one of Samba’s biggest advantages.

3.3 Threading smbd

A few problems that would arise from a threaded smbd are:

1. It’s not only to create threads instead of processes, but you must care
about all variables if they have to be thread specific (currently they
would be global).
2. if one thread dies (eg. a seg fault) then all threads die. We can
immediately throw robustness out the window.
3. many of the system calls we make are blocking. Non-blocking equiva-
lents of many calls are either not available or are awkward (and slow)
to use. So while we block in one thread all clients are waiting. Imagine
if one share is a slow NFS filesystem and the others are fast, we will
end up slowing all clients to the speed of NFS.
4. you can’t run as a different uid in different threads. This means we
would have to switch uid/gid on every SMB packet. It would be
horrendously slow.
5. the per process file descriptor limit would mean that we could only
support a limited number of clients.
6. we couldn’t use the system locking calls as the locking context of fcntl()
is a process, not a thread.

3.4 Threading nmbd

This would be ideal, but gets sunk by portability requirements.

Andrew tried to write a test threads library for nmbd that used only ansi-C
constructs (using setjmp and longjmp). Unfortunately some OSes defeat
this by restricting longjmp to calling addresses that are shallower than the
current address on the stack (apparently AIX does this). This makes a truly
portable threads library impossible. So to support all our current platforms
Section 3.5. nbmd Design 59

we would have to code nmbd both with and without threads, and as the
real aim of threads is to make the code clearer we would not have gained
anything. (it is a myth that threads make things faster. threading is like
recursion, it can make things clear but the same thing can always be done
faster by some other method)
Chris tried to spec out a general design that would abstract threading vs
separate processes (vs other methods?) and make them accessible through
some general API. This doesn’t work because of the data sharing require-
ments of the protocol (packets in the future depending on packets now, etc.)
At least, the code would work but would be very clumsy, and besides the
fork() type model would never work on Unix. (Is there an OS that it would
work on, for nmbd?)
A fork() is cheap, but not nearly cheap enough to do on every UDP packet
that arrives. Having a pool of processes is possible but is nasty to program
cleanly due to the enormous amount of shared data (in complex structures)
between the processes. We can’t rely on each platform having a shared
memory system.

3.5 nbmd Design

Originally Andrew used recursion to simulate a multi-threaded environment,

which use the stack enormously and made for really confusing debugging
sessions. Luke Leighton rewrote it to use a queuing system that keeps state
information on each packet. The first version used a single structure which
was used by all the pending states. As the initialisation of this structure
was done by adding arguments, as the functionality developed, it got pretty
messy. So, it was replaced with a higher-order function and a pointer to
a user-defined memory block. This suddenly made things much simpler:
large numbers of functions could be made static, and modularised. This is
the same principle as used in NT’s kernel, and achieves the same effect as
threads, but in a single process.
Then Jeremy rewrote nmbd. The packet data in nmbd isn’t what’s on the
wire. It’s a nice format that is very amenable to processing but still keeps
the idea of a distinct packet. See ”struct packet struct” in nameserv.h. It
has all the detail but none of the on-the-wire mess. This makes it ideal for
using in disk or memory-based databases for browsing and WINS support.
Chapter 4

THE SAMBA DEBUG

SYSTEM

4.1 New Output Syntax

The syntax of a debugging log file is represented as:

>debugfile< :== { >debugmsg< }

>debugmsg< :== >debughdr< ’\n’ >debugtext<

>debughdr< :== ’[’ TIME ’,’ LEVEL ’]’ FILE ’:’ [FUNCTION] ’(’ LINE ’)’

>debugtext< :== { >debugline< }

>debugline< :== TEXT ’\n’

TEXT is a string of characters excluding the newline character.

LEVEL is the DEBUG level of the message (an integer in the range 0..10).
TIME is a timestamp.
FILE is the name of the file from which the debug message was generated.
FUNCTION is the function from which the debug message was generated.
LINE is the line number of the debug statement that generated the message.
Basically, what that all means is:

60
Section 4.2. The DEBUG() Macro 61

1. A debugging log file is made up of debug messages.

2. Each debug message is made up of a header and text. The header is
separated from the text by a newline.
3. The header begins with the timestamp and debug level of the message
enclosed in brackets. The filename, function, and line number at which
the message was generated follow. The filename is terminated by a
colon, and the function name is terminated by the parenthesis which
contain the line number. Depending upon the compiler, the function
name may be missing (it is generated by the FUNCTION macro,
which is not universally implemented, dangit).
4. The message text is made up of zero or more lines, each terminated
by a newline.
Here’s some example output:

[1998/08/03 12:55:25, 1] nmbd.c:(659)

Netbios nameserver version 1.9.19-prealpha started.
Copyright Andrew Tridgell 1994-1997
[1998/08/03 12:55:25, 3] loadparm.c:(763)
Initializing global parameters

Note that in the above example the function names are not listed on the
header line. That’s because the example above was generated on an SGI
Indy, and the SGI compiler doesn’t support the FUNCTION macro.

4.2 The DEBUG() Macro

Use of the DEBUG() macro is unchanged. DEBUG() takes two parameters.

The first is the message level, the second is the body of a function call to
the Debug1() function.
That’s confusing.
Here’s an example which may help a bit. If you would write

printf( "This is a %s message.\n", "debug" );

62 The samba DEBUG system Chapter 4

to send the output to stdout, then you would write

DEBUG( 0, ( "This is a %s message.\n", "debug" ) );

to send the output to the debug file. All of the normal printf() formatting
escapes work.
Note that in the above example the DEBUG message level is set to 0. Mes-
sages at level 0 always print. Basically, if the message level is less than or
equal to the global value DEBUGLEVEL, then the DEBUG statement is
processed.
The output of the above example would be something like:

[1998/07/30 16:00:51, 0] file.c:function(128)

This is a debug message.

Each call to DEBUG() creates a new header *unless* the output produced
by the previous call to DEBUG() did not end with a ’\n’. Output to the
debug file is passed through a formatting buffer which is flushed every time a
newline is encountered. If the buffer is not empty when DEBUG() is called,
the new input is simply appended.
...but that’s really just a Kludge. It was put in place because DEBUG()
has been used to write partial lines. Here’s a simple (dumb) example of the
kind of thing I’m talking about:

DEBUG( 0, ("The test returned " ) );

if( test() )
DEBUG(0, ("True") );
else
DEBUG(0, ("False") );
DEBUG(0, (".\n") );

Without the format buffer, the output (assuming test() returned true) would
look like this:

[1998/07/30 16:00:51, 0] file.c:function(256)

Section 4.3. The DEBUGADD() Macro 63

The test returned

[1998/07/30 16:00:51, 0] file.c:function(258)
True
[1998/07/30 16:00:51, 0] file.c:function(261)
.

Which isn’t much use. The format buffer kludge fixes this problem.

4.3 The DEBUGADD() Macro

In addition to the kludgey solution to the broken line problem described

above, there is a clean solution. The DEBUGADD() macro never generates
a header. It will append new text to the current debug message even if the
format buffer is empty. The syntax of the DEBUGADD() macro is the same
as that of the DEBUG() macro.

DEBUG( 0, ("This is the first line.\n" ) );

DEBUGADD( 0, ("This is the second line.\nThis is the third line.\n" ) );

Produces

[1998/07/30 16:00:51, 0] file.c:function(512)

This is the first line.
This is the second line.
This is the third line.

4.4 The DEBUGLVL() Macro

One of the problems with the DEBUG() macro was that DEBUG() lines
tended to get a bit long. Consider this example from nmbd sendannounce.c:

DEBUG(3,("send_local_master_announcement: type %x for name %s on subnet %s for workgroup

type, global_myname, subrec->subnet_name, work->work_group));
64 The samba DEBUG system Chapter 4

One solution to this is to break it down using DEBUG() and DEBUGADD(),

as follows:

DEBUG( 3, ( "send_local_master_announcement: " ) );

DEBUGADD( 3, ( "type %x for name %s ", type, global_myname ) );
DEBUGADD( 3, ( "on subnet %s ", subrec->subnet_name ) );
DEBUGADD( 3, ( "for workgroup %s\n", work->work_group ) );

A similar, but arguably nicer approach is to use the DEBUGLVL() macro.

This macro returns True if the message level is less than or equal to the
global DEBUGLEVEL value, so:

if( DEBUGLVL( 3 ) )
{
dbgtext( "send_local_master_announcement: " );
dbgtext( "type %x for name %s ", type, global_myname );
dbgtext( "on subnet %s ", subrec->subnet_name );
dbgtext( "for workgroup %s\n", work->work_group );
}

(The dbgtext() function is explained below.)

There are a few advantages to this scheme:
1. The test is performed only once.
2. You can allocate variables off of the stack that will only be used within
the DEBUGLVL() block.
3. Processing that is only relevant to debug output can be contained
within the DEBUGLVL() block.

4.5 New Functions

4.5.1 dbgtext()

This function prints debug message text to the debug file (and possibly
to syslog) via the format buffer. The function uses a variable argument
list just like printf() or Debug1(). The input is printed into a buffer using
Section 4.5. New Functions 65

the vslprintf() function, and then passed to format debug text(). If you
use DEBUGLVL() you will probably print the body of the message using
dbgtext().

4.5.2 dbghdr()

This is the function that writes a debug message header. Headers are not
processed via the format buffer. Also note that if the format buffer is not
empty, a call to dbghdr() will not produce any output. See the comments
in dbghdr() for more info.
It is not likely that this function will be called directly. It is used by DE-
BUG() and DEBUGADD().

4.5.3 format debug text()

This is a static function in debug.c. It stores the output text for the body
of the message in a buffer until it encounters a newline. When the newline
character is found, the buffer is written to the debug file via the Debug1()
function, and the buffer is reset. This allows us to add the indentation at
the beginning of each line of the message body, and also ensures that the
output is written a line at a time (which cleans up syslog output).
Chapter 5

SAMBA INTERNALS

5.1 Character Handling

This section describes character set handling in Samba, as implemented in

Samba 3.0 and above

In the past Samba had very ad-hoc character set handling. Scattered through-
out the code were numerous calls which converted particular strings to/from
DOS codepages. The problem is that there was no way of telling if a partic-
ular char* is in dos codepage or unix codepage. This led to a nightmare of
code that tried to cope with particular cases without handlingt the general
case.

5.2 The new functions

The new system works like this:

1. all char* strings inside Samba are ”unix” strings. These are multi-byte
strings that are in the charset defined by the ”unix charset” option in
smb.conf.

2. there is no single fixed character set for unix strings, but any character
set that is used does need the following properties:

(a) must not contain NULLs except for termination

(b) must be 7-bit compatible with C strings, so that a constant string

or character in C will be byte-for-byte identical to the equivalent
string in the chosen character set.

66
Section 5.2. The new functions 67

(c) when you uppercase or lowercase a string it does not become

longer than the original string

(d) must be able to correctly hold all characters that your client will
throw at it

For example, UTF-8 is fine, and most multi-byte asian character sets
are fine, but UCS2 could not be used for unix strings as they contain
nulls.

3. when you need to put a string into a buffer that will be sent on the
wire, or you need a string in a character set format that is compatible
with the clients character set then you need to use a pull or push
function. The pull functions pull a string from a wire buffer into a
(multi-byte) unix string. The push functions push a string out to a
wire buffer.

4. the two main pull and push functions you need to understand are
pull string and push string. These functions take a base pointer that
should point at the start of the SMB packet that the string is in.
The functions will check the flags field in this packet to automatically
determine if the packet is marked as a unicode packet, and they will
choose whether to use unicode for this string based on that flag. You
may also force this decision using the STR UNICODE or STR ASCII
flags. For use in smbd/ and libsmb/ there are wrapper functions clistr
and srvstr that call the pull /push functions with the appropriate
first argument.

You may also call the pull ascii/pull ucs2 or push ascii/push ucs2 func-
tions if you know that a particular string is ascii or unicode. There
are also a number of other convenience functions in charcnv.c that call
the pull /push functions with particularly common arguments, such
as pull ascii pstring()

5. The biggest thing to remember is that internal (unix) strings in Samba

may now contain multi-byte characters. This means you cannot as-
sume that characters are always 1 byte long. Often this means that
you will have to convert strings to ucs2 and back again in order to do
some (seemingly) simple task. For examples of how to do this see func-
tions like strchr m(). I know this is very slow, and we will eventually
speed it up but right now we want this stuff correct not fast.
68 Samba Internals Chapter 5

6. all lp functions now return unix strings. The magic ”DOS” flag on
parameters is gone.
7. all vfs functions take unix strings. Don’t convert when passing to them

5.3 Macros in byteorder.h

This section describes the macros defined in byteorder.h. These macros are
used extensively in the Samba code.

5.3.1 CVAL(buf,pos)

returns the byte at offset pos within buffer buf as an unsigned character.

5.3.2 PVAL(buf,pos)

returns the value of CVAL(buf,pos) cast to type unsigned integer.

5.3.3 SCVAL(buf,pos,val)

sets the byte at offset pos within buffer buf to value val.

5.3.4 SVAL(buf,pos)

returns the value of the unsigned short (16 bit) little-endian integer at offset
pos within buffer buf. An integer of this type is sometimes refered to as
”USHORT”.

5.3.5 IVAL(buf,pos)

returns the value of the unsigned 32 bit little-endian integer at offset pos
within buffer buf.

5.3.6 SVALS(buf,pos)

returns the value of the signed short (16 bit) little-endian integer at offset
pos within buffer buf.
Section 5.3. Macros in byteorder.h 69

5.3.7 IVALS(buf,pos)

returns the value of the signed 32 bit little-endian integer at offset pos within
buffer buf.

5.3.8 SSVAL(buf,pos,val)

sets the unsigned short (16 bit) little-endian integer at offset pos within
buffer buf to value val.

5.3.9 SIVAL(buf,pos,val)

sets the unsigned 32 bit little-endian integer at offset pos within buffer buf
to the value val.

5.3.10 SSVALS(buf,pos,val)

sets the short (16 bit) signed little-endian integer at offset pos within buffer
buf to the value val.

5.3.11 SIVALS(buf,pos,val)

sets the signed 32 bit little-endian integer at offset pos withing buffer buf to
the value val.

5.3.12 RSVAL(buf,pos)

returns the value of the unsigned short (16 bit) big-endian integer at offset
pos within buffer buf.

5.3.13 RIVAL(buf,pos)

returns the value of the unsigned 32 bit big-endian integer at offset pos
within buffer buf.
70 Samba Internals Chapter 5

5.3.14 RSSVAL(buf,pos,val)

sets the value of the unsigned short (16 bit) big-endian integer at offset pos
within buffer buf to value val. refered to as ”USHORT”.

5.3.15 RSIVAL(buf,pos,val)

sets the value of the unsigned 32 bit big-endian integer at offset pos within
buffer buf to value val.

5.4 LAN Manager Samba API

This section describes the functions need to make a LAN Manager RPC call.
This information had been obtained by examining the Samba code and the
LAN Manager 2.0 API documentation. It should not be considered entirely
reliable.

call_api(int prcnt, int drcnt, int mprcnt, int mdrcnt,

char *param, char *data, char **rparam, char **rdata);

This function is defined in client.c. It uses an SMB transaction to call a

remote api.

5.4.1 Parameters

The parameters are as follows:

1. prcnt: the number of bytes of parameters begin sent.
2. drcnt: the number of bytes of data begin sent.
3. mprcnt: the maximum number of bytes of parameters which should
be returned
4. mdrcnt: the maximum number of bytes of data which should be re-
turned
5. param: a pointer to the parameters to be sent.
6. data: a pointer to the data to be sent.
Section 5.4. LAN Manager Samba API 71

7. rparam: a pointer to a pointer which will be set to point to the returned

parameters. The caller of call api() must deallocate this memory.

8. rdata: a pointer to a pointer which will be set to point to the returned

data. The caller of call api() must deallocate this memory.

These are the parameters which you ought to send, in the order of their
appearance in the parameter block:

1. An unsigned 16 bit integer API number. You should set this value
with SSVAL(). I do not know where these numbers are described.

2. An ASCIIZ string describing the parameters to the API function as

defined in the LAN Manager documentation. The first parameter,
which is the server name, is ommited. This string is based uppon
the API function as described in the manual, not the data which is
actually passed.

3. An ASCIIZ string describing the data structure which ought to be

returned.

4. Any parameters which appear in the function call, as defined in the

LAN Manager API documentation, after the ”Server” and up to and
including the ”uLevel” parameters.

5. An unsigned 16 bit integer which gives the size in bytes of the buffer we
will use to receive the returned array of data structures. Presumably
this should be the same as mdrcnt. This value should be set with
SSVAL().

6. An ASCIIZ string describing substructures which should be returned.

If no substructures apply, this string is of zero length.

The code in client.c always calls call api() with no data. It is unclear when
a non-zero length data buffer would be sent.

5.4.2 Return value

The returned parameters (pointed to by rparam), in their order of appear-

ance are:

1. An unsigned 16 bit integer which contains the API function’s return

code. This value should be read with SVAL().
72 Samba Internals Chapter 5

2. An adjustment which tells the amount by which pointers in the re-

turned data should be adjusted. This value should be read with
SVAL(). Basically, the address of the start of the returned data buffer
should have the returned pointer value added to it and then have this
value subtracted from it in order to obtain the currect offset into the
returned data buffer.
3. A count of the number of elements in the array of structures returned.
It is also possible that this may sometimes be the number of bytes
returned.
When call api() returns, rparam points to the returned parameters. The
first if these is the result code. It will be zero if the API call suceeded. This
value by be read with ”SVAL(rparam,0)”.
The second parameter may be read as ”SVAL(rparam,2)”. It is a 16 bit
offset which indicates what the base address of the returned data buffer was
when it was built on the server. It should be used to correct pointer before
use.
The returned data buffer contains the array of returned data structures.
Note that all pointers must be adjusted before use. The function fix char ptr()
in client.c can be used for this purpose.
The third parameter (which may be read as ”SVAL(rparam,4)”) has some-
thing to do with indicating the amount of data returned or possibly the
amount of data which can be returned if enough buffer space is allowed.

5.5 Code character table

Certain data structures are described by means of ASCIIz strings containing

code characters. These are the code characters:
1. W a type byte little-endian unsigned integer
2. N a count of substructures which follow
3. D a four byte little-endian unsigned integer
4. B a byte (with optional count expressed as trailing ASCII digits)
5. z a four byte offset to a NULL terminated string
6. l a four byte offset to non-string user data
Section 5.5. Code character table 73

7. b an offset to data (with count expressed as trailing ASCII digits)

8. r pointer to returned data buffer???
9. L length in bytes of returned data buffer???
10. h number of bytes of information available???
Chapter 6

CODING SUGGESTIONS

So you want to add code to Samba ...

One of the daunting tasks facing a programmer attempting to write code for
Samba is understanding the various coding conventions used by those most
active in the project. These conventions were mostly unwritten and helped
improve either the portability, stability or consistency of the code. This
document will attempt to document a few of the more important coding
practices used at this time on the Samba project. The coding practices are
expected to change slightly over time, and even to grow as more is learned
about obscure portability considerations. Two existing documents samba/
source/internals.doc and samba/source/architecture.doc provide ad-
ditional information.
The loosely related question of coding style is very personal and this doc-
ument does not attempt to address that subject, except to say that I have
observed that eight character tabs seem to be preferred in Samba source.
If you are interested in the topic of coding style, two oft-quoted documents
are:
<http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/CodingStyle>
<http://www.fsf.org/prep/standards_toc.html>
But note that coding style in Samba varies due to the many different pro-
grammers who have contributed.
Following are some considerations you should use when adding new code to
Samba. First and foremost remember that:
Portability is a primary consideration in adding function, as is network com-
patability with de facto, existing, real world CIFS/SMB implementations.

74
 75

There are lots of platforms that Samba builds on so use caution when adding
a call to a library function that is not invoked in existing Samba code. Also
note that there are many quite different SMB/CIFS clients that Samba tries
to support, not all of which follow the SNIA CIFS Technical Reference (or
the earlier Microsoft reference documents or the X/Open book on the SMB
Standard) perfectly.
Here are some other suggestions:
1. use d printf instead of printf for display text reason: enable auto-
substitution of translated language text
2. use SAFE FREE instead of free reason: reduce traps due to null point-
ers
3. don’t use bzero use memset, or ZERO STRUCT and ZERO STRUCTP
macros reason: not POSIX
4. don’t use strcpy and strlen (use safe * equivalents) reason: to avoid
traps due to buffer overruns
5. don’t use getopt long, use popt functions instead reason: portability
6. explicitly add const qualifiers on parm passing in functions where parm
is input only (somewhat controversial but const can be #defined away)
7. when passing a va list as an arg, or assigning one to another please use
the VA COPY() macro reason: on some platforms, va list is a struct
that must be initialized in each function...can SEGV if you don’t.
8. discourage use of threads reason: portability (also see architecture.doc)
9. don’t explicitly include new header files in C files - new h files should
be included by adding them once to includes.h reason: consistency
10. don’t explicitly extern functions (they are autogenerated by ”make
proto” into proto.h) reason: consistency
11. use endian safe macros when unpacking SMBs (see byteorder.h and
internals.doc) reason: not everyone uses Intel
12. Note Unicode implications of charset handling (see internals.doc). See
pull * and push * and convert string functions. reason: Internation-
alization
13. Don’t assume English only reason: See above
76 Coding Suggestions Chapter 6

14. Try to avoid using in/out parameters (functions that return data which
overwrites input parameters) reason: Can cause stability problems
15. Ensure copyright notices are correct, don’t append Tridge’s name to
code that he didn’t write. If you did not write the code, make sure
that it can coexist with the rest of the Samba GPLed code.
16. Consider usage of DATA BLOBs for length specified byte-data. rea-
son: stability
17. Take advantage of tdbs for database like function reason: consistency
18. Don’t access the SAM ACCOUNT structure directly, they should be
accessed via pdb get...() and pdb set...() functions. reason: stability,
consistency
19. Don’t check a password directly against the passdb, always use the
check password() interface. reason: long term pluggability
20. Try to use asprintf rather than pstrings and fstrings where possible
21. Use normal C comments / * instead of C++ comments // like this.
Although the C++ comment format is part of the C99 standard, some
older vendor C compilers do not accept it.
22. Try to write documentation for API functions and structures explain-
ing the point of the code, the way it should be used, and any special
conditions or results. Mark these with a double-star comment start /
** so that they can be picked up by Doxygen, as in this file.
23. Keep the scope narrow. This means making functions/variables static
whenever possible. We don’t want our namespace polluted. Each
module should have a minimal number of externally visible functions
or variables.
24. Use function pointers to keep knowledge about particular pieces of
code isolated in one place. We don’t want a particular piece of func-
tionality to be spread out across lots of places - that makes for fragile,
hand to maintain code. Instead, design an interface and use tables
containing function pointers to implement specific functionality. This
is particularly important for command interpreters.
25. Think carefully about what it will be like for someone else to add
to and maintain your code. If it would be hard for someone else to
maintain then do it another way.
 77

The suggestions above are simply that, suggestions, but the information
may help in reducing the routine rework done on new code. The preceeding
list is expected to change routinely as new support routines and macros are
added.
Chapter 7

CONTRIBUTING CODE

Here are a few tips and notes that might be useful if you are interested in
modifying samba source code and getting it into samba’s main branch.

Retrieving the source In order to contribute code to samba, make sure

you have the latest source. Retrieving the samba source code from
CVS is documented in the appendix of the Samba HOWTO Collection.

Discuss large modifications with team members Please discuss large

modifications you are going to make with members of the samba team.
Some parts of the samba code have one or more ’owners’ - samba
developers who wrote most of the code and maintain it.
This way you can avoid spending your time and effort on something
that is not going to make it into the main samba branch because
someone else was working on the same thing or because your imple-
mentation is not the correct one.

Patch format Patches to the samba tree should be in unified diff format,
e.g. files generated by diff -u.
If you are modifying a copy of samba you retrieved from CVS, you can
easily generate a diff file of these changes by running cvs diff -u.

Points of attention when modifying samba source code • Don’t sim-

ply copy code from other places and modify it until it works. Code
needs to be clean and logical. Duplicate code is to be avoided.

78
 79

• Test your patch. It might take a while before one of us looks

at your patch so it will take longer before your patch when your
patch needs to go thru the review cycle again.
• Don’t put separate patches in one large diff file. This makes it
harder to read, understand and test the patch. You might also
risk not getting a good patch committed because you mixed it
with one that had issues.
• Make sure your patch complies to the samba coding style as sug-
gested in the coding-suggestions chapter.

Sending in bugfixes Bugfixes to bugs in samba should be submitted to

samba’s bugzilla system1 , along with a description of the bug.

Sending in feature patches Send feature patches along with a descrip-

tion of what the patch is supposed to do to the Samba-technical mail-
inglist2 and possibly to a samba team member who is (one of the)
’owners’ of the code you made modifications to. We are all busy peo-
ple so everybody tends to ’let one of the others handle it’. If nobody
responded to your patch for a week, try to send it again until you get
a response from one of us.

Feedback on your patch One of the team members will look at your
patch and either commit your patch or give comments why he won’t
apply it. In the latter case you can fix your patch and re-send it until
your patch is approved.

1
<https://bugzilla.samba.org/>
2
<mailto:samba-technical@samba.org>
Chapter 8

MODULES

8.1 Advantages

The new modules system has the following advantages:

Transparent loading of static and shared modules (no need for a subsystem to know about mod
Simple selection between shared and static modules at configure time
”preload modules” option for increasing performance for stable modules
No nasty #define stuff anymore
All backends are available as plugin now (including pdb ldap and pdb tdb)

8.2 Loading modules

Some subsystems in samba use different backends. These backends can be

either statically linked in to samba or available as a plugin. A subsystem
should have a function that allows a module to register itself. For example,
the passdb subsystem has:

NTSTATUS smb_register_passdb(int version, const char *name, pdb_init_function ini

This function will be called by the initialisation function of the module to

register itself.

8.2.1 Static modules

The modules system compiles a list of initialisation functions for the static
modules of each subsystem. This is a define. For example, it is here currently

80
Section 8.3. Writing modules 81

(from include/config.h):

/* Static init functions */

#define static_init_pdb { pdb_mysql_init(); pdb_ldap_init(); pdb_smbpasswd_init(); pdb_tdb

These functions should be called before the subsystem is used. That should
be done when the subsystem is initialised or first used.

8.2.2 Shared modules

If a subsystem needs a certain backend, it should check if it has already been

registered. If the backend hasn’t been registered already, the subsystem
should call smb probe module(char *subsystem, char *backend). This func-
tion tries to load the correct module from a certain path ($LIBDIR/subsys-
tem/backend.so). If the first character in ’backend’ is a slash, smb probe module()
tries to load the module from the absolute path specified in ’backend’.

After smb probe module() has been executed, the subsystem should check
again if the module has been registered.

8.3 Writing modules

Each module has an initialisation function. For modules that are included
with samba this name is ’subsystem backend init’. For external modules
(that will never be built-in, but only available as a module) this name is
always ’init module’. (In the case of modules included with samba, the con-
figure system will add a #define subsystem backend init() init module()).
The prototype for these functions is:

NTSTATUS init_module(void);

This function should call one or more registration functions. The function
should return NT STATUS OK on success and NT STATUS UNSUCCESSFUL
or a more useful nt error code on failure.

For example, pdb ldap init() contains:

82 Modules Chapter 8

NTSTATUS pdb_ldap_init(void)
{
smb_register_passdb(PASSDB_INTERFACE_VERSION, "ldapsam", pdb_init_ldapsam);
smb_register_passdb(PASSDB_INTERFACE_VERSION, "ldapsam_nua", pdb_init_ldapsam_nua
return NT_STATUS_OK;
}

8.3.1 Static/Shared selection in configure.in

Some macros in configure.in generate the various defines and substs that are
necessary for the system to work correct. All modules that should be built
by default have to be added to the variable ’default modules’. For example,
if ldap is found, pdb ldap is added to this variable.

On the bottom of configure.in, SMB MODULE() should be called for each

module and SMB SUBSYSTEM() for each subsystem.

Syntax:

SMB_MODULE(subsystem_backend, object files, plugin name, subsystem name, static_a

SMB_SUBSYSTEM(subsystem,depfile)

The depfile for a certain subsystem is the file that calls the initialisation
functions for the statically built in modules.

@SUBSYSTEM MODULES@ in Makefile.in will be replaced with the names of the

plugins to build.

You must make sure all .c files that contain defines that can be changed by
./configure are rebuilded in the ’modules clean’ make target. Practically,
this means all c files that contain static init subsystem; calls need to be
rebuilded.
Section 8.3. Writing modules 83

Note

There currently also is a configure.in command called

SMB MODULE PROVIVES(). This is used for modules
that register multiple things. It should not be used as
probing will most likely disappear in the future.
 Part III

Samba Subsystems
Chapter 9

RPC PLUGGABLE MODULES

9.1 About

This document describes how to make use the new RPC Pluggable Modules
features of Samba 3.0. This architecture was added to increase the main-
tainability of Samba allowing RPC Pipes to be worked on separately from
the main CVS branch. The RPM architecture will also allow third-party
vendors to add functionality to Samba through plug-ins.

9.2 General Overview

When an RPC call is sent to smbd, smbd tries to load a shared library by
the name librpc <pipename>.so to handle the call if it doesn’t know how
to handle the call internally. For instance, LSA calls are handled by librpc
lsass.so.. These shared libraries should be located in the <sambaroot>/
lib/rpc. smbd then attempts to call the init module function within the
shared library. Check the chapter on modules for more information.
In the init module function, the library should call rpc pipe register commands().
This function takes the following arguments:

NTSTATUS rpc_pipe_register_commands(int version, const char *clnt, const char *srv,

const struct api_struct *cmds, int size);

version Version number of the RPC interface. Use the define SMB RPC INTERFACE VERSION
for this argument.

85
86 RPC Pluggable Modules Chapter 9

clnt the Client name of the named pipe

srv the Server name of the named pipe

cmds a list of api structs that map RPC ordinal numbers to function calls

size the number of api structs contained in cmds

See rpc server/srv reg.c and rpc server/srv reg nt.c for a small example of
how to use this library.
Chapter 10

VFS MODULES

10.1 The Samba (Posix) VFS layer

While most of Samba deployments are done using POSIX-compatible oper-

ating systems, there is clearly more to a file system than what is required by
POSIX when it comes to adopting semantics of NT file system. Since Samba
2.2 all file-system related operations go through an abstraction layer for vir-
tual file system (VFS) that is modelled after both POSIX and additional
functions needed to transform NTFS semantics.

This abstraction layer now provides more features than a regular POSIX file
system could fill in. It is not required that all of them should be implemented
by your particular file system. However, when those features are available,
Samba would advertize them to a CIFS client and they might be used by an
application and in case of Windows client that might mean a client expects
even more additional functionality when it encounters those features. There
is a practical reason to allow handling of this snowfall without modifying the
Samba core and it is fulfilled by providing an infrastructure to dynamically
load VFS modules at run time.

Each VFS module could implement a number of VFS operations. The way
it does it is irrelevant, only two things actually matter: whether specific
implementation wants to cooperate with other modules’ implementations
or not, and whether module needs to store additional information that is
specific to a context it is operating in. Multiple VFS modules could be
loaded at the same time and it is even possible to load several instances of
the same VFS module with different parameters.

87
88 VFS Modules Chapter 10

10.1.1 The general interface

A VFS module has three major components:

• An initialization function that is called during the module load to

register implemented operations.

• An operations table representing a mapping between statically defined

module functions and VFS layer operations.

• Module functions that do actual work.

While this structure has been first applied to the VFS subsystem, it is now
commonly used across all Samba 3 subsystems that support loadable mod-
ules. In fact, one module could provide a number of interfaces to different
subsystems by exposing different operation tables through separate initial-
ization functions.

An initialization function is used to register module with Samba run-time.

As Samba internal structures and API are changed over lifetime, each re-
leased version has a VFS interface version that is increased as VFS devel-
opment progresses or any of underlying Samba structures are changed in
binary-incompatible way. When VFS module is compiled in, VFS interface
version of that Samba environment is embedded into the module’s binary
object and is checked by the Samba core upon module load. If VFS interface
number reported by the module isn’t the same Samba core knows about, ver-
sion conflict is detected and module dropped to avoid any potential memory
corruption when accessing (changed) Samba structures.

Therefore, initialization function passes three parameters to the VFS regis-

tration function, smb register vfs()

• interface version number, as constant SMB VFS INTERFACE VERSION,

• module name, under which Samba core will know it, and

• an operations’ table.

The operations’ table defines which functions in the module would corre-
spond to specific VFS operations and how those functions would co-operate
with the rest of VFS subsystem. Each operation could perform in a following
ways:
Section 10.1. The Samba (Posix) VFS layer 89

• transparent, meaning that while operation is overriden, the module

will still call a previous implementation, before or after its own action.
This mode is indicated by the constant SMB VFS LAYER TRANSPARENT;
• opaque, for the implementations that are terminating sequence of ac-
tions. For example, it is used to implement POSIX operation on top of
non-POSIX file system or even not a file system at all, like a database
for a personal audio collection. Use constant SMB VFS LAYER OPAQUE
for this mode;
• splitter, a way when some file system activity is done in addition to
the transparently calling previous implentation. This usually involves
mangling the result of that call before returning it back to the caller.
This mode is selected by SMB VFS LAYER SPLITTER constant;
• logger does not change anything or performs any additional VFS op-
erations. When logger module acts, information about operations is
logged somewhere using an external facility (or Samba’s own debug-
ging tools) but not the VFS layer. In order to describe this type of
activity use constant SMB VFS LAYER LOGGER;
• On contrary, scanner module does call other VFS operations while pro-
cessing the data that goes through the system. This type of operation
is indicated by the SMB VFS LAYER SCANNER constant.
Fundamentally, there are three types: transparent, opaque, and logger. Split-
ter and scanner may confuse developers (and indeed they are confused as
our experience has shown) but this separation is to better expose the nature
of a module’s actions. Most of modules developed so far are either one of
those three fundamental types with transparent and opaque being prevalent.
Each VFS operation has a vfs op type, a function pointer and a handle
pointer in the struct vfs ops and tree macros to make it easier to call the
operations. (Take a look at include/vfs.h and include/vfs macros.h.)

typedef enum _vfs_op_type {

SMB_VFS_OP_NOOP = -1,

...

/* File operations */
90 VFS Modules Chapter 10

SMB_VFS_OP_OPEN,
SMB_VFS_OP_CLOSE,
SMB_VFS_OP_READ,
SMB_VFS_OP_WRITE,
SMB_VFS_OP_LSEEK,
SMB_VFS_OP_SENDFILE,

...

SMB_VFS_OP_LAST
} vfs_op_type;

This struct contains the function and handle pointers for all operations.

struct vfs_ops {
struct vfs_fn_pointers {
...

/* File operations */

int (*open)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,

struct connection_struct *conn,
const char *fname, int flags, mode_t mode);
int (*close)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,
struct files_struct *fsp, int fd);
ssize_t (*read)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,
struct files_struct *fsp, int fd, void *data, size_t n);
ssize_t (*write)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,
struct files_struct *fsp, int fd,
const void *data, size_t n);
SMB_OFF_T (*lseek)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,
struct files_struct *fsp, int fd,
SMB_OFF_T offset, int whence);
ssize_t (*sendfile)(struct vfs_handle_struct *handle,
int tofd, files_struct *fsp, int fromfd,
const DATA_BLOB *header, SMB_OFF_T offset, size_t count);

...
} ops;
Section 10.1. The Samba (Posix) VFS layer 91

struct vfs_handles_pointers {
...

/* File operations */

struct vfs_handle_struct *open;

struct vfs_handle_struct *close;
struct vfs_handle_struct *read;
struct vfs_handle_struct *write;
struct vfs_handle_struct *lseek;
struct vfs_handle_struct *sendfile;

...
} handles;
};

This macros SHOULD be used to call any vfs operation. DO NOT ACCESS
conn->vfs.ops.* directly !!!

...

/* File operations */
#define SMB_VFS_OPEN(conn, fname, flags, mode) \
((conn)->vfs.ops.open((conn)->vfs.handles.open,\
(conn), (fname), (flags), (mode)))
#define SMB_VFS_CLOSE(fsp, fd) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs.ops.close(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs.handles.close, (fsp), (fd)))
#define SMB_VFS_READ(fsp, fd, data, n) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs.ops.read(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs.handles.read,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_WRITE(fsp, fd, data, n) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs.ops.write(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs.handles.write,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_LSEEK(fsp, fd, offset, whence) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs.ops.lseek(\
92 VFS Modules Chapter 10

(fsp)->conn->vfs.handles.lseek,\
(fsp), (fd), (offset), (whence)))
#define SMB_VFS_SENDFILE(tofd, fsp, fromfd, header, offset, count) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs.ops.sendfile(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs.handles.sendfile,\
(tofd), (fsp), (fromfd), (header), (offset), (count)))

...

10.1.2 Possible VFS operation layers

These values are used by the VFS subsystem when building the conn->vfs
and conn->vfs opaque structs for a connection with multiple VFS modules.
Internally, Samba differentiates only opaque and transparent layers at this
process. Other types are used for providing better diagnosing facilities.

Most modules will provide transparent layers. Opaque layer is for modules
which implement actual file system calls (like DB-based VFS). For example,
default POSIX VFS which is built in into Samba is an opaque VFS module.

Other layer types (logger, splitter, scanner) were designed to provide differ-
ent degree of transparency and for diagnosing VFS module behaviour.

Each module can implement several layers at the same time provided that
only one layer is used per each operation.

typedef enum _vfs_op_layer {

SMB_VFS_LAYER_NOOP = -1, /* - For using in VFS module to indicate end of arr
/* of operations description */
SMB_VFS_LAYER_OPAQUE = 0, /* - Final level, does not call anything beyond its
SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPARENT, /* - Normal operation, calls underlying layer after
/* possibly changing passed data */
SMB_VFS_LAYER_LOGGER, /* - Logs data, calls underlying layer, logging may
/* use Samba VFS */
SMB_VFS_LAYER_SPLITTER, /* - Splits operation, calls underlying layer _and_
/* then combines result */
SMB_VFS_LAYER_SCANNER /* - Checks data and possibly initiates additional
/* file activity like logging to files _inside_ samba VFS */
Section 10.2. The Interaction between the Samba VFS subsystem and the modules 93

} vfs_op_layer;

10.2 The Interaction between the Samba VFS subsystem

and the modules

10.2.1 Initialization and registration

As each Samba module a VFS module should have a

NTSTATUS vfs_example_init(void);
function if it’s staticly linked to samba or
NTSTATUS init_module(void);
function if it’s a shared module.
This should be the only non static function inside the module. Global vari-
ables should also be static!
The module should register its functions via the

NTSTATUS smb_register_vfs(int version, const char *name, vfs_op_tuple *vfs_op_tuples);

function.

version should be filled with SMB VFS INTERFACE VERSION

name this is the name witch can be listed in the vfs objects parameter to
use this module.

vfs op tuples this is an array of vfs op tuple’s. (vfs op tuples is descripted

in details below.)
For each operation the module wants to provide it has a entry in the
vfs op tuple array.

typedef struct _vfs_op_tuple {

94 VFS Modules Chapter 10

void* op;
vfs_op_type type;
vfs_op_layer layer;
} vfs_op_tuple;

op the function pointer to the specified function.

type the vfs op type of the function to specified witch operation the func-
tion provides.

layer the vfs op layer in whitch the function operates.

A simple example:

static vfs_op_tuple example_op_tuples[] = {

{SMB_VFS_OP(example_connect), SMB_VFS_OP_CONNECT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPARENT},
{SMB_VFS_OP(example_disconnect), SMB_VFS_OP_DISCONNECT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPA

{SMB_VFS_OP(example_rename), SMB_VFS_OP_RENAME, SMB_VFS_LAYER_OPAQUE},

/* This indicates the end of the array */

{SMB_VFS_OP(NULL), SMB_VFS_OP_NOOP, SMB_VFS_LAYER_NOOP}
};

NTSTATUS init_module(void)
{
return smb_register_vfs(SMB_VFS_INTERFACE_VERSION, "example", example_op_tuple
}

10.2.2 How the Modules handle per connection data

Each VFS function has as first parameter a pointer to the modules vfs handle struct.

typedef struct vfs_handle_struct {

struct vfs_handle_struct *next, *prev;
Section 10.2. The Interaction between the Samba VFS subsystem and the modules 95

const char *param;

struct vfs_ops vfs_next;
struct connection_struct *conn;
void *data;
void (*free_data)(void **data);
} vfs_handle_struct;

param this is the module parameter specified in the vfs objects parame-
ter.
e.g. for ’vfs objects = example:test’ param would be ”test”.

vfs next This vfs ops struct contains the information for calling the next
module operations. Use the SMB VFS NEXT * macros to call a next
module operations and don’t access handle->vfs next.ops.* directly!

conn This is a pointer back to the connection struct to witch the handle
belongs.

data This is a pointer for holding module private data. You can alloc
data with connection life time on the handle->conn->mem ctx TAL-
LOC CTX. But you can also manage the memory allocation yourself.

free data This is a function pointer to a function that free’s the module
private data. If you talloc your private data on the TALLOC CTX
handle->conn->mem ctx, you can set this function pointer to NULL.
Some useful MACROS for handle private data.

#define SMB_VFS_HANDLE_GET_DATA(handle, datap, type, ret) { \

if (!(handle)||((datap=(type *)(handle)->data)==NULL)) { \
DEBUG(0,("%s() failed to get vfs_handle->data!\n",FUNCTION_MACRO)); \
ret; \
} \
}

#define SMB_VFS_HANDLE_SET_DATA(handle, datap, free_fn, type, ret) { \

96 VFS Modules Chapter 10

if (!(handle)) { \
DEBUG(0,("%s() failed to set handle->data!\n",FUNCTION_MACRO)); \
ret; \
} else { \
if ((handle)->free_data) { \
(handle)->free_data(&(handle)->data); \
} \
(handle)->data = (void *)datap; \
(handle)->free_data = free_fn; \
} \
}

#define SMB_VFS_HANDLE_FREE_DATA(handle) { \
if ((handle) && (handle)->free_data) { \
(handle)->free_data(&(handle)->data); \
} \
}

How SMB VFS LAYER TRANSPARENT functions can call the SMB VFS LAYER OPAQUE
functions.

The easiest way to do this is to use the SMB VFS OPAQUE * macros.

...
/* File operations */
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_OPEN(conn, fname, flags, mode) \
((conn)->vfs_opaque.ops.open(\
(conn)->vfs_opaque.handles.open,\
(conn), (fname), (flags), (mode)))
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_CLOSE(fsp, fd) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.ops.close(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.handles.close,\
(fsp), (fd)))
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_READ(fsp, fd, data, n) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.ops.read(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.handles.read,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_WRITE(fsp, fd, data, n) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.ops.write(\
Section 10.2. The Interaction between the Samba VFS subsystem and the modules 97

(fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.handles.write,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_LSEEK(fsp, fd, offset, whence) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.ops.lseek(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.handles.lseek,\
(fsp), (fd), (offset), (whence)))
#define SMB_VFS_OPAQUE_SENDFILE(tofd, fsp, fromfd, header, offset, count) \
((fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.ops.sendfile(\
(fsp)->conn->vfs_opaque.handles.sendfile,\
(tofd), (fsp), (fromfd), (header), (offset), (count)))
...

How SMB VFS LAYER TRANSPARENT functions can call the next mod-
ules functions.

The easiest way to do this is to use the SMB VFS NEXT * macros.

...
/* File operations */
#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_OPEN(handle, conn, fname, flags, mode) \
((handle)->vfs_next.ops.open(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.open,\
(conn), (fname), (flags), (mode)))
#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_CLOSE(handle, fsp, fd) \
((handle)->vfs_next.ops.close(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.close,\
(fsp), (fd)))
#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_READ(handle, fsp, fd, data, n) \
((handle)->vfs_next.ops.read(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.read,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_WRITE(handle, fsp, fd, data, n) \
((handle)->vfs_next.ops.write(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.write,\
(fsp), (fd), (data), (n)))
#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_LSEEK(handle, fsp, fd, offset, whence) \
((handle)->vfs_next.ops.lseek(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.lseek,\
(fsp), (fd), (offset), (whence)))
98 VFS Modules Chapter 10

#define SMB_VFS_NEXT_SENDFILE(handle, tofd, fsp, fromfd, header, offset, count) \

((handle)->vfs_next.ops.sendfile(\
(handle)->vfs_next.handles.sendfile,\
(tofd), (fsp), (fromfd), (header), (offset), (count)))
...

10.3 Upgrading to the New VFS Interface

10.3.1 Upgrading from 2.2.* and 3.0aplha modules

1. Add ”vfs handle struct *handle, ” as first parameter to all vfs oper-
ation functions. e.g. example connect(connection struct *conn, const
char *service, const char *user); -> example connect(vfs handle struct
*handle, connection struct *conn, const char *service, const char *user);
2. Replace ”default vfs ops.” with ”smb vfs next ”. e.g. default vfs ops.connect(conn,
service, user); -> smb vfs next connect(conn, service, user);
3. Uppercase all ”smb vfs next *” functions. e.g. smb vfs next connect(conn,
service, user); -> SMB VFS NEXT CONNECT(conn, service, user);
4. Add ”handle, ” as first parameter to all SMB VFS NEXT *() calls.
e.g. SMB VFS NEXT CONNECT(conn, service, user); -> SMB VFS NEXT CONNECT(h
conn, service, user);
5. (Only for 2.2.* modules) Convert the old struct vfs ops example ops
to a vfs op tuple example op tuples[] array. e.g.

struct vfs_ops example_ops = {

/* Disk operations */
example_connect, /* connect */
example_disconnect, /* disconnect */
NULL, /* disk free *
/* Directory operations */
NULL, /* opendir */
NULL, /* readdir */
NULL, /* mkdir */
NULL, /* rmdir */
NULL, /* closedir */
Section 10.3. Upgrading to the New VFS Interface 99

/* File operations */
NULL, /* open */
NULL, /* close */
NULL, /* read */
NULL, /* write */
NULL, /* lseek */
NULL, /* sendfile */
NULL, /* rename */
NULL, /* fsync */
example_stat, /* stat */
example_fstat, /* fstat */
example_lstat, /* lstat */
NULL, /* unlink */
NULL, /* chmod */
NULL, /* fchmod */
NULL, /* chown */
NULL, /* fchown */
NULL, /* chdir */
NULL, /* getwd */
NULL, /* utime */
NULL, /* ftruncate */
NULL, /* lock */
NULL, /* symlink */
NULL, /* readlink */
NULL, /* link */
NULL, /* mknod */
NULL, /* realpath */
NULL, /* fget_nt_acl */
NULL, /* get_nt_acl */
NULL, /* fset_nt_acl */
NULL, /* set_nt_acl */

NULL, /* chmod_acl */
NULL, /* fchmod_acl */

NULL, /* sys_acl_get_entry */
NULL, /* sys_acl_get_tag_type */
NULL, /* sys_acl_get_permset */
NULL, /* sys_acl_get_qualifier */
NULL, /* sys_acl_get_file */
100 VFS Modules Chapter 10

NULL, /* sys_acl_get_fd */
NULL, /* sys_acl_clear_perms */
NULL, /* sys_acl_add_perm */
NULL, /* sys_acl_to_text */
NULL, /* sys_acl_init */
NULL, /* sys_acl_create_entry */
NULL, /* sys_acl_set_tag_type */
NULL, /* sys_acl_set_qualifier */
NULL, /* sys_acl_set_permset */
NULL, /* sys_acl_valid */
NULL, /* sys_acl_set_file */
NULL, /* sys_acl_set_fd */
NULL, /* sys_acl_delete_def_file */
NULL, /* sys_acl_get_perm */
NULL, /* sys_acl_free_text */
NULL, /* sys_acl_free_acl */
NULL /* sys_acl_free_qualifier */
};

->

static vfs_op_tuple example_op_tuples[] = {

{SMB_VFS_OP(example_connect), SMB_VFS_OP_CONNECT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPAR
{SMB_VFS_OP(example_disconnect), SMB_VFS_OP_DISCONNECT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TR

{SMB_VFS_OP(example_fstat), SMB_VFS_OP_FSTAT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPARENT

{SMB_VFS_OP(example_stat), SMB_VFS_OP_STAT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPARENT
{SMB_VFS_OP(example_lstat), SMB_VFS_OP_LSTAT, SMB_VFS_LAYER_TRANSPARENT

{SMB_VFS_OP(NULL), SMB_VFS_OP_NOOP, SMB_VFS_LAYER_NOOP}

};

6. Move the example op tuples[] array to the end of the file.

7. Add the init module() function at the end of the file. e.g.

NTSTATUS init_module(void)
{
Section 10.3. Upgrading to the New VFS Interface 101

return smb_register_vfs(SMB_VFS_INTERFACE_VERSION,"example",example_op_tuples);
}

8. Check if your vfs init() function does more then just prepare the
If NOT you can remove the vfs init() fu
vfs ops structs or remember the struct smb vfs handle struct.
If YES decide if you want to move the
9. (Only for 3.0alpha* modules) Check if your vfs done() function con-
If NOT you can remove the vfs done() function.
tains needed code.
If YES decide if you can move the code to the example disconnect() operation. O
10. Check if you have any global variables left. Decide if it wouldn’t be bet-
If NOT leave them as they are. (e.g. this could be the var
ter to have this data on a connection basis.
If YES pack all this data into a struct. You can use handl
e.g. if you have such a struct:

struct example_privates {
char *some_string;
int db_connection;
};

first way of doing it:

static int example_connect(vfs_handle_struct *handle,

connection_struct *conn, const char *service,
const char* user)
{
struct example_privates *data = NULL;

/* alloc our private data */

data = (struct example_privates *)talloc_zero(conn->mem_ctx, sizeof(struct example
if (!data) {
DEBUG(0,("talloc_zero() failed\n"));
return -1;
}

/* init out private data */

data->some_string = talloc_strdup(conn->mem_ctx,"test");
if (!data->some_string) {
102 VFS Modules Chapter 10

DEBUG(0,("talloc_strdup() failed\n"));
return -1;
}

data->db_connection = open_db_conn();

/* and now store the private data pointer in handle->data

* we don’t need to specify a free_function here because
* we use the connection TALLOC context.
* (return -1 if something failed.)
*/
VFS_HANDLE_SET_DATA(handle, data, NULL, struct example_privates, return -

return SMB_VFS_NEXT_CONNECT(handle,conn,service,user);
}

static int example_close(vfs_handle_struct *handle, files_struct *fsp, int f

{
struct example_privates *data = NULL;

/* get the pointer to our private data

* return -1 if something failed
*/
SMB_VFS_HANDLE_GET_DATA(handle, data, struct example_privates, return -1)

/* do something here...*/
DEBUG(0,("some_string: %s\n",data->some_string));

return SMB_VFS_NEXT_CLOSE(handle, fsp, fd);

}

second way of doing it:

static void free_example_privates(void **datap)

{
struct example_privates *data = (struct example_privates *)*datap;

SAFE_FREE(data->some_string);
SAFE_FREE(data);
Section 10.3. Upgrading to the New VFS Interface 103

*datap = NULL;

return;
}

static int example_connect(vfs_handle_struct *handle,

connection_struct *conn, const char *service,
const char* user)
{
struct example_privates *data = NULL;

/* alloc our private data */

data = (struct example_privates *)malloc(sizeof(struct example_privates));
if (!data) {
DEBUG(0,("malloc() failed\n"));
return -1;
}

/* init out private data */

data->some_string = strdup("test");
if (!data->some_string) {
DEBUG(0,("strdup() failed\n"));
return -1;
}

data->db_connection = open_db_conn();

/* and now store the private data pointer in handle->data

* we need to specify a free_function because we used malloc() and strdup().
* (return -1 if something failed.)
*/
SMB_VFS_HANDLE_SET_DATA(handle, data, free_example_privates, struct example_privat

return SMB_VFS_NEXT_CONNECT(handle,conn,service,user);
}

static int example_close(vfs_handle_struct *handle, files_struct *fsp, int fd)

{
struct example_privates *data = NULL;
104 VFS Modules Chapter 10

/* get the pointer to our private data

* return -1 if something failed
*/
SMB_VFS_HANDLE_GET_DATA(handle, data, struct example_privates, return -1)

/* do something here...*/
DEBUG(0,("some_string: %s\n",data->some_string));

return SMB_VFS_NEXT_CLOSE(handle, fsp, fd);

}

11. To make it easy to build 3rd party modules it would be usefull to

provide configure.in, (configure), install.sh and Makefile.in with the
module. (Take a look at the example in examples/VFS.)

The configure script accepts --with-samba-source to specify the path

to the samba source tree. It also accept --enable-developer which
lets the compiler give you more warnings.

The idea is that you can extend this configure.in and Makefile.in
scripts for your module.
./configure --enable-developer ...
make
12. Compiling & Testing... Try to fix all compiler warnings
make
Testing, Testing, Testing ...

10.4 Some Notes

10.4.1 Implement TRANSPARENT functions

Avoid writing functions like this:

static int example_close(vfs_handle_struct *handle, files_struct *fsp, int fd)

{
return SMB_VFS_NEXT_CLOSE(handle, fsp, fd);
Section 10.4. Some Notes 105

Overload only the functions you really need to!

10.4.2 Implement OPAQUE functions

If you want to just implement a better version of a default samba opaque

function (e.g. like a disk free() function for a special filesystem) it’s ok to
just overload that specific function.
If you want to implement a database filesystem or something different from
a posix filesystem. Make sure that you overload every vfs operation!!!
Functions your FS does not support should be overloaded by something like
this: e.g. for a readonly filesystem.

static int example_rename(vfs_handle_struct *handle, connection_struct *conn,

char *oldname, char *newname)
{
DEBUG(10,("function rename() not allowed on vfs ’example’\n"));
errno = ENOSYS;
return -1;
}
Chapter 11

THE SMB.CONF FILE

11.1 Lexical Analysis

Basically, the file is processed on a line by line basis. There are four types
of lines that are recognized by the lexical analyzer (params.c):

1. Blank lines - Lines containing only whitespace.

2. Comment lines - Lines beginning with either a semi-colon or a pound

sign (’;’ or ’#’).

3. Section header lines - Lines beginning with an open square bracket

(’[’).

4. Parameter lines - Lines beginning with any other character. (The

default line type.)

The first two are handled exclusively by the lexical analyzer, which ignores
them. The latter two line types are scanned for

1. - Section names

2. - Parameter names

3. - Parameter values

These are the only tokens passed to the parameter loader (loadparm.c).
Parameter names and values are divided from one another by an equal sign:
’=’.

106
Section 11.1. Lexical Analysis 107

11.1.1 Handling of Whitespace

Whitespace is defined as all characters recognized by the isspace() func-

tion (see ctype(3C)) except for the newline character (’\n’) The newline is
excluded because it identifies the end of the line.

1. The lexical analyzer scans past white space at the beginning of a line.

2. Section and parameter names may contain internal white space. All
whitespace within a name is compressed to a single space character.

3. Internal whitespace within a parameter value is kept verbatim with the

exception of carriage return characters (’\r’), all of which are removed.

4. Leading and trailing whitespace is removed from names and values.

11.1.2 Handling of Line Continuation

Long section header and parameter lines may be extended across multiple
lines by use of the backslash character (’\\’). Line continuation is ignored
for blank and comment lines.

If the last (non-whitespace) character within a section header or on a param-

eter line is a backslash, then the next line will be (logically) concatonated
with the current line by the lexical analyzer. For example:

param name = parameter value string \

with line continuation.

Would be read as

param name = parameter value string with line continuation.

Note that there are five spaces following the word ’string’, representing the
one space between ’string’ and ’\\’ in the top line, plus the four preceeding
the word ’with’ in the second line. (Yes, I’m counting the indentation.)

Line continuation characters are ignored on blank lines and at the end of
comments. They are *only* recognized within section and parameter lines.
108 The smb.conf file Chapter 11

11.1.3 Line Continuation Quirks

Note the following example:

param name = parameter value string \

\
with line continuation.

The middle line is *not* parsed as a blank line because it is first concatonated
with the top line. The result is

param name = parameter value string with line continuation.

The same is true for comment lines.

param name = parameter value string \

; comment \
with a comment.

This becomes:

param name = parameter value string ; comment with a comment.

On a section header line, the closing bracket (’]’) is considered a terminating

character, and the rest of the line is ignored. The lines

[ section name ] garbage \

param name = value

are read as

[section name]
param name = value
Section 11.2. Syntax 109

11.2 Syntax

The syntax of the smb.conf file is as follows:

<file> :== { <section> } EOF

<section> :== <section header> { <parameter line> }
<section header> :== ’[’ NAME ’]’
<parameter line> :== NAME ’=’ VALUE NL

Basically, this means that

1. a file is made up of zero or more sections, and is terminated by an
EOF (we knew that).
2. A section is made up of a section header followed by zero or more
parameter lines.
3. A section header is identified by an opening bracket and terminated
by the closing bracket. The enclosed NAME identifies the section.
4. A parameter line is divided into a NAME and a VALUE. The *first*
equal sign on the line separates the NAME from the VALUE. The
VALUE is terminated by a newline character (NL = ’\n’).

11.2.1 About params.c

The parsing of the config file is a bit unusual if you are used to lex, yacc,
bison, etc. Both lexical analysis (scanning) and parsing are performed by
params.c. Values are loaded via callbacks to loadparm.c.
Chapter 12

SAMBA WINS INTERNALS

12.1 WINS Failover

The current Samba codebase possesses the capability to use groups of WINS
servers that share a common namespace for NetBIOS name registration and
resolution. The formal parameter syntax is

WINS_SERVER_PARAM = SERVER [ SEPARATOR SERVER_LIST ]

WINS_SERVER_PARAM = "wins server"
SERVER = ADDR[:TAG]
ADDR = ip_addr | fqdn
TAG = string
SEPARATOR = comma | \s+
SERVER_LIST = SERVER [ SEPARATOR SERVER_LIST ]

A simple example of a valid wins server setting is

[global]
wins server = 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3

In the event that no TAG is defined in for a SERVER in the list, smbd
assigns a default TAG of ”*”. A TAG is used to group servers of a shared
NetBIOS namespace together. Upon startup, nmbd will attempt to register
the netbios name value with one server in each tagged group.
An example using tags to group WINS servers together is show here. Note
that the use of interface names in the tags is only by convention and is not

110
Section 12.1. WINS Failover 111

a technical requirement.

[global]
wins server = 192.168.1.2:eth0 192.168.1.3:eth0 192.168.2.2:eth1

Using this configuration, nmbd would attempt to register the server’s Net-
BIOS name with one WINS server in each group. Because the ”eth0” group
has two servers, the second server would only be used when a registration
(or resolution) request to the first server in that group timed out.
NetBIOS name resolution follows a similar pattern as name registration.
When resolving a NetBIOS name via WINS, smbd and other Samba pro-
grams will attempt to query a single WINS server in a tagged group until
either a positive response is obtained at least once or until a server from ev-
ery tagged group has responded negatively to the name query request. If a
timeout occurs when querying a specific WINS server, that server is marked
as down to prevent further timeouts and the next server in the WINS group
is contacted. Once marked as dead, Samba will not attempt to contact that
server for name registration/resolution queries for a period of 10 minutes.
Chapter 13

LANMAN AND NT
PASSWORD ENCRYPTION

13.1 Introduction

With the development of LanManager and Windows NT compatible pass-

word encryption for Samba, it is now able to validate user connections in
exactly the same way as a LanManager or Windows NT server.

This document describes how the SMB password encryption algorithm works
and what issues there are in choosing whether you want to use it. You
should read it carefully, especially the part about security and the ”PROS
and CONS” section.

13.2 How does it work?

LanManager encryption is somewhat similar to UNIX password encryption.

The server uses a file containing a hashed value of a user’s password. This
is created by taking the user’s plaintext password, capitalising it, and either
truncating to 14 bytes or padding to 14 bytes with null bytes. This 14 byte
value is used as two 56 bit DES keys to encrypt a ’magic’ eight byte value,
forming a 16 byte value which is stored by the server and client. Let this
value be known as the ”hashed password”.

Windows NT encryption is a higher quality mechanism, consisting of do-

ing an MD4 hash on a Unicode version of the user’s password. This also
produces a 16 byte hash value that is non-reversible.

112
Section 13.3. The smbpasswd file 113

When a client (LanManager, Windows for WorkGroups, Windows 95 or

Windows NT) wishes to mount a Samba drive (or use a Samba resource), it
first requests a connection and negotiates the protocol that the client and
server will use. In the reply to this request the Samba server generates and
appends an 8 byte, random value - this is stored in the Samba server after
the reply is sent and is known as the ”challenge”. The challenge is different
for every client connection.
The client then uses the hashed password (16 byte values described above),
appended with 5 null bytes, as three 56 bit DES keys, each of which is used
to encrypt the challenge 8 byte value, forming a 24 byte value known as the
”response”.
In the SMB call SMBsessionsetupX (when user level security is selected)
or the call SMBtconX (when share level security is selected), the 24 byte
response is returned by the client to the Samba server. For Windows NT
protocol levels the above calculation is done on both hashes of the user’s
password and both responses are returned in the SMB call, giving two 24
byte values.
The Samba server then reproduces the above calculation, using its own
stored value of the 16 byte hashed password (read from the smbpasswd file
- described later) and the challenge value that it kept from the negotiate
protocol reply. It then checks to see if the 24 byte value it calculates matches
the 24 byte value returned to it from the client.
If these values match exactly, then the client knew the correct password
(or the 16 byte hashed value - see security note below) and is thus allowed
access. If not, then the client did not know the correct password and is
denied access.
Note that the Samba server never knows or stores the cleartext of the user’s
password - just the 16 byte hashed values derived from it. Also note that
the cleartext password or 16 byte hashed values are never transmitted over
the network - thus increasing security.

13.3 The smbpasswd file

In order for Samba to participate in the above protocol it must be able to

look up the 16 byte hashed values given a user name. Unfortunately, as the
UNIX password value is also a one way hash function (ie. it is impossible
114 LanMan and NT Password Encryption Chapter 13

to retrieve the cleartext of the user’s password given the UNIX hash of it),
a separate password file containing this 16 byte value must be kept. To
minimise problems with these two password files, getting out of sync, the
UNIX /etc/passwd and the smbpasswd file, a utility, mksmbpasswd.sh,
is provided to generate a smbpasswd file from a UNIX /etc/passwd file.
To generate the smbpasswd file from your /etc/passwd file use the following
command:
$cat /etc/passwd | mksmbpasswd.sh > /usr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd
If you are running on a system that uses NIS, use
$ypcat passwd | mksmbpasswd.sh > /usr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd
The mksmbpasswd.sh program is found in the Samba source directory.
By default, the smbpasswd file is stored in :
/usr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd
The owner of the /usr/local/samba/private/ directory should be set to
root, and the permissions on it should be set to 0500 (chmod 500 /us-
r/local/samba/private).
Likewise, the smbpasswd file inside the private directory should be owned
by root and the permissions on is should be set to 0600 (chmod 600 smb-
passwd).
The format of the smbpasswd file is (The line has been wrapped here. It
should appear as one entry per line in your smbpasswd file.)

username:uid:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:
[Account type]:LCT-<last-change-time>:Long name

Although only the username, uid, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

[Account type] and last-change-time sections are significant and are looked
at in the Samba code.
It is VITALLY important that there by 32 ’X’ characters between the two ’:’
characters in the XXX sections - the smbpasswd and Samba code will fail to
validate any entries that do not have 32 characters between ’:’ characters.
The first XXX section is for the Lanman password hash, the second is for
the Windows NT version.
Section 13.3. The smbpasswd file 115

When the password file is created all users have password entries consisting
of 32 ’X’ characters. By default this disallows any access as this user. When
a user has a password set, the ’X’ characters change to 32 ascii hexadecimal
digits (0-9, A-F). These are an ascii representation of the 16 byte hashed
value of a user’s password.
To set a user to have no password (not recommended), edit the file using
vi, and replace the first 11 characters with the ascii text "NO PASSWORD"
(minus the quotes).
For example, to clear the password for user bob, his smbpasswd file entry
would look like :

bob:100:NO PASSWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:
[U ]:LCT-00000000:Bob’s full name:/bobhome:/bobshell

If you are allowing users to use the smbpasswd command to set their own
passwords, you may want to give users NO PASSWORD initially so they do
not have to enter a previous password when changing to their new password
(not recommended). In order for you to allow this the smbpasswd program
must be able to connect to the smbd daemon as that user with no password.
Enable this by adding the line :
null passwords = yes
to the [global] section of the smb.conf file (this is why the above scenario
is not recommended). Preferably, allocate your users a default password to
begin with, so you do not have to enable this on your server.
Note :This file should be protected very carefully. Anyone with access to
this file can (with enough knowledge of the protocols) gain access to your
SMB server. The file is thus more sensitive than a normal unix /etc/passwd
file.
 Part IV

Debugging and tracing

Chapter 14

TRACING SAMBA SYSTEM

CALLS

This file describes how to do a system call trace on Samba to work out what
its doing wrong. This is not for the faint of heart, but if you are reading
this then you are probably desperate.
Actually its not as bad as the the above makes it sound, just don’t expect
the output to be very pretty :-)
Ok, down to business. One of the big advantages of unix systems is that they
nearly all come with a system trace utility that allows you to monitor all
system calls that a program is making. This is extremely using for debugging
and also helps when trying to work out why something is slower than you
expect. You can use system tracing without any special compilation options.
The system trace utility is called different things on different systems. On
Linux systems its called strace. Under SunOS 4 its called trace. Under
SVR4 style systems (including solaris) its called truss. Under many BSD
systems its called ktrace.
The first thing you should do is read the man page for your native system
call tracer. In the discussion below I’ll assume its called strace as strace is
the only portable system tracer (its available for free for many unix types)
and its also got some of the nicest features.
Next, try using strace on some simple commands. For example, strace ls
or strace echo hello.
You’ll notice that it produces a LOT of output. It is showing you the
arguments to every system call that the program makes and the result.

117
118 Tracing samba system calls Chapter 14

Very little happens in a program without a system call so you get lots of
output. You’ll also find that it produces a lot of ”preamble” stuff showing
the loading of shared libraries etc. Ignore this (unless its going wrong!)
For example, the only line that really matters in the strace echo hello
output is:

write(1, "hello\n", 6) = 6

all the rest is just setting up to run the program.

Ok, now you’re familiar with strace. To use it on Samba you need to strace
the running smbd daemon. The way I tend ot use it is to first login from my
Windows PC to the Samba server, then use smbstatus to find which process
ID that client is attached to, then as root I do strace -p PID to attach to
that process. I normally redirect the stderr output from this command to a
file for later perusal. For example, if I’m using a csh style shell:
strace -f -p 3872 >& strace.out
or with a sh style shell:
strace -f -p 3872 > strace.out 2>&1
Note the ”-f” option. This is only available on some systems, and allows you
to trace not just the current process, but any children it forks. This is great
for finding printing problems caused by the ”print command” being wrong.
Once you are attached you then can do whatever it is on the client that is
causing problems and you will capture all the system calls that smbd makes.
So how do you interpret the results? Generally I search through the output
for strings that I know will appear when the problem happens. For example,
if I am having touble with permissions on a file I would search for that files
name in the strace output and look at the surrounding lines. Another trick
is to match up file descriptor numbers and ”follow” what happens to an
open file until it is closed.
Beyond this you will have to use your initiative. To give you an idea of what
you are looking for here is a piece of strace output that shows that /dev/
null is not world writeable, which causes printing to fail with Samba:

[pid 28268] open("/dev/null", O_RDWR) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

 119

[pid 28268] open("/dev/null", O_WRONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

The process is trying to first open /dev/null read-write then read-only.

Both fail. This means /dev/null has incorrect permissions.
Chapter 15

SAMBA PRINTING
INTERNALS

15.1 Abstract

The purpose of this document is to provide some insight into Samba’s print-
ing functionality and also to describe the semantics of certain features of
Windows client printing.

15.2 Printing Interface to Various Back ends

Samba uses a table of function pointers to seven functions. The function

prototypes are defined in the printif structure declared in printing.h.
• retrieve the contents of a print queue
• pause the print queue
• resume a paused print queue
• delete a job from the queue
• pause a job in the print queue
• result a paused print job in the queue
• submit a job to the print queue
Currently there are only two printing back end implementations defined.
• a generic set of functions for working with standard UNIX printing
subsystems

120
Section 15.3. Print Queue TDB’s 121

• a set of CUPS specific functions (this is only enabled if the CUPS

libraries were located at compile time).

15.3 Print Queue TDB’s

Samba provides periodic caching of the output from the ”lpq command” for
performance reasons. This cache time is configurable in seconds. Obviously
the longer the cache time the less often smbd will be required to exec a
copy of lpq. However, the accuracy of the print queue contents displayed to
clients will be diminished as well.
The list of currently opened print queue TDB’s can be found be examin-
ing the list of tdb print db structures ( see print db head in printing.c ). A
queue TDB is opened using the wrapper function printing.c:get print db byname().
The function ensures that smbd does not open more than MAX PRINT DBS OPEN
in an effort to prevent a large print server from exhausting all available file
descriptors. If the number of open queue TDB’s exceeds the MAX PRINT DBS OPEN
limit, smbd falls back to a most recently used algorithm for maintaining a
list of open TDB’s.
There are two ways in which a a print job can be entered into a print queue’s
TDB. The first is to submit the job from a Windows client which will insert
the job information directly into the TDB. The second method is to have
the print job picked up by executing the ”lpq command”.

/* included from printing.h */

struct printjob {
pid_t pid; /* which process launched the job */
int sysjob; /* the system (lp) job number */
int fd; /* file descriptor of open file if open */
time_t starttime; /* when the job started spooling */
int status; /* the status of this job */
size_t size; /* the size of the job so far */
int page_count; /* then number of pages so far */
BOOL spooled; /* has it been sent to the spooler yet? */
BOOL smbjob; /* set if the job is a SMB job */
fstring filename; /* the filename used to spool the file */
fstring jobname; /* the job name given to us by the client */
fstring user; /* the user who started the job */
122 Samba Printing Internals Chapter 15

fstring queuename; /* service number of printer for this job */

NT_DEVICEMODE *nt_devmode;
};

The current manifestation of the printjob structure contains a field for the
UNIX job id returned from the ”lpq command” and a Windows job ID (32-
bit bounded by PRINT MAX JOBID). When a print job is returned by the
”lpq command” that does not match an existing job in the queue’s TDB, a
32-bit job ID above the <*vance doesn’t know what word is missing here*>
is generating by adding UNIX JOB START to the id reported by lpq.

In order to match a 32-bit Windows jobid onto a 16-bit lanman print job id,
smbd uses an in memory TDB to match the former to a number appropriate
for old lanman clients.

When updating a print queue, smbd will perform the following steps ( refer
to print.c:print queue update() ):

1. Check to see if another smbd is currently in the process of updating

the queue contents by checking the pid stored in LOCK/printer name .
If so, then do not update the TDB.

2. Lock the mutex entry in the TDB and store our own pid. Check that
this succeeded, else fail.

3. Store the updated time stamp for the new cache listing

4. Retrieve the queue listing via ”lpq command”

5.
foreach job in the queue
{
if the job is a UNIX job, create a new entry;
if the job has a Windows based jobid, then
{
Lookup the record by the jobid;
if the lookup failed, then
treat it as a UNIX job;
else
update the job status only
}
}
Section 15.4. ChangeID and Client Caching of Printer Information 123

6. Delete any jobs in the TDB that are not in the in the lpq listing
7. Store the print queue status in the TDB
8. update the cache time stamp again
Note that it is the contents of this TDB that is returned to Windows clients
and not the actual listing from the ”lpq command”.
The NT DEVICEMODE stored as part of the printjob structure is used
to store a pointer to a non-default DeviceMode associated with the print
job. The pointer will be non-null when the client included a Device Mode
in the OpenPrinterEx() call and subsequently submitted a job for printing
on that same handle. If the client did not include a Device Mode in the
OpenPrinterEx() request, the nt devmode field is NULL and the job has
the printer’s device mode associated with it by default.
Only non-default Device Mode are stored with print jobs in the print queue
TDB. Otherwise, the Device Mode is obtained from the printer object when
the client issues a GetJob(level == 2) request.

15.4 ChangeID and Client Caching of Printer Information

[To be filled in later]

15.5 Windows NT/2K Printer Change Notify

When working with Windows NT+ clients, it is possible for a print server
to use RPC to send asynchronous change notification events to clients for
certain printer and print job attributes. This can be useful when the client
needs to know that a new job has been added to the queue for a given printer
or that the driver for a printer has been changed. Note that this is done
entirely orthogonal to cache updates based on a new ChangeID for a printer
object.
The basic set of RPC’s used to implement change notification are
• RemoteFindFirstPrinterChangeNotifyEx ( RFFPCN )
• RemoteFindNextPrinterChangeNotifyEx ( RFNPCN )
• FindClosePrinterChangeNotify( FCPCN )
124 Samba Printing Internals Chapter 15

• ReplyOpenPrinter
• ReplyClosePrinter
• RouteRefreshPrinterChangeNotify ( RRPCN )
One additional RPC is available to a server, but is never used by the Win-
dows spooler service:
• RouteReplyPrinter()
The opnum for all of these RPC’s are defined in include/rpc spoolss.h
Windows NT print servers use a bizarre method of sending print notification
event to clients. The process of registering a new change notification handle
is as follows. The ’C’ is for client and the ’S’ is for server. All error conditions
have been eliminated.

C: Obtain handle to printer or to the printer

server via the standard OpenPrinterEx() call.
S: Respond with a valid handle to object

C: Send a RFFPCN request with the previously obtained

handle with either (a) set of flags for change events
to monitor, or (b) a PRINTER_NOTIFY_OPTIONS structure
containing the event information to monitor. The windows
spooler has only been observed to use (b).
S: The <* another missing word*> opens a new TCP session to the client (thus requ
all print clients to be CIFS servers as well) and sends
a ReplyOpenPrinter() request to the client.
C: The client responds with a printer handle that can be used to
send event notification messages.
S: The server replies success to the RFFPCN request.

C: The windows spooler follows the RFFPCN with a RFNPCN

request to fetch the current values of all monitored
attributes.
S: The server replies with an array SPOOL_NOTIFY_INFO_DATA
structures (contained in a SPOOL_NOTIFY_INFO structure).

C: If the change notification handle is ever released by the

client via a FCPCN request, the server sends a ReplyClosePrinter()
Section 15.5. Windows NT/2K Printer Change Notify 125

request back to the client first. However a request of this

nature from the client is often an indication that the previous
notification event was not marshalled correctly by the server
or a piece of data was wrong.
S: The server closes the internal change notification handle
(POLICY_HND) and does not send any further change notification
events to the client for that printer or job.

The current list of notification events supported by Samba can be found by

examining the internal tables in srv spoolss nt.c
• printer notify table[]
• job notify table[]
When an event occurs that could be monitored, smbd sends a message to it-
self about the change. The list of events to be transmitted are queued by the
smbd process sending the message to prevent an overload of TDB usage and
the internal message is sent during smbd’s idle loop (refer to printing/notify.c
and the functions send spoolss notify2 msg() and print notify send messages()
).
The decision of whether or not the change is to be sent to connected clients
is made by the routine which actually sends the notification. ( refer to
srv spoolss nt.c:recieve notify2 message() ).
Because it possible to receive a listing of multiple changes for multiple print-
ers, the notification events must be split into categories by the printer name.
This makes it possible to group multiple change events to be sent in a single
RPC according to the printer handle obtained via a ReplyOpenPrinter().
The actual change notification is performed using the RRPCN request RPC.
This packet contains
• the printer handle registered with the client’s spooler on which the
change occurred
• The change low value which was sent as part of the last RFNPCN
request from the client
• The SPOOL NOTIFY INFO container with the event information
A SPOOL NOTIFY INFO contains:
• the version and flags field are predefined and should not be changed
126 Samba Printing Internals Chapter 15

• The count field is the number of entries in the SPOOL NOTIFY INFO DATA
array
The SPOOL NOTIFY INFO DATA entries contain:
• The type defines whether or not this event is for a printer or a print
job
• The field is the flag identifying the event
• the notify data union contains the new valuie of the attribute
• The enc type defines the size of the structure for marshalling and un-
marshalling
• (a) the id must be 0 for a printer event on a printer handle. (b) the
id must be the job id for an event on a printer job (c) the id must be
the matching number of the printer index used in the response packet
to the RFNPCN when using a print server handle for notification.
Samba currently uses the snum of the printer for this which can break
if the list of services has been modified since the notification handle
was registered.
• The size is either (a) the string length in UNICODE for strings, (b)
the size in bytes of the security descriptor, or (c) 0 for data values.
 Part V

Appendices
Chapter 16

NOTES TO PACKAGERS

16.1 Versioning

Please, please update the version number in source/include/version.h to

include the versioning of your package. This makes it easier to distinguish
standard samba builds from custom-build samba builds (distributions often
patch packages). For example, a good version would be:

Version 2.999+3.0.alpha21-5 for Debian

16.2 Modules

Samba3 has support for building parts of samba as plugins. This makes it
possible to, for example, put ldap or mysql support in a separate package,
thus making it possible to have a normal samba package not depending on
ldap or mysql. To build as much parts of samba as a plugin, run:
The option --with-shared-modules is maintained to support specific mod-
ules such as idmap XXX and vfs XXX. For example, --with-shared-modules=idmap
ad. Use of this parameter to the configure command as not been supported
in official releases.

./configure --with-shared-modules=rpc,vfs,auth,pdb,charset

127