Since I installed Samba on my Linux box, I get many errors. From root kit checkers that tell me the port is deadly infected (no kinding!) to PAM that every day would tell me that the /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so module could not be found.

Oh! Yeah! I actually had to install that module. Not too obvious from the error though. I thought it would be automatic.

Every time a Windows box would connect, I'd get this entry:

May 17 07:05:01 hostname CRON[14871]: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_smbpass.so)
May 17 07:05:01 hostname CRON[14871]: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so:
             cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
May 17 07:05:01 hostname CRON[14871]: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so

And once a day I'd get this one:

May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo:     root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=**** ;
   COMMAND=/usr/bin/gconftool --get /system/http_proxy/use_http_proxy
May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_smbpass.so)
May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so:
    cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so
May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user **** by (uid=0)
May 24 06:25:03 hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user ****
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo:     root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=**** ;
   COMMAND=/usr/bin/gconftool --get /system/http_proxy/host
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_smbpass.so)
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so:
   cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user **** by (uid=0)
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user ****
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo:     root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=**** ;
   COMMAND=/usr/bin/gconftool --get /system/http_proxy/port
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_smbpass.so)
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so:
   cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
May 24 06:25:04 hostname sudo: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_smbpass.so

The fix was to install the PAM smbpass on my machine. On an Ubuntu or Debian system, use the following:

sudo apt-get install libpam-smbpass

Another way is to turn off the PAM system request for Samba authentication. That is done in the following two files:

• /etc/pam.d/common-auth
• /etc/pam.d/common-password

I do not recommand this method since you lose on the checks performed by PAM.