Username level

SMB clients (such as Windows) will often send usernames in SMB connection requests entirely in capital letters; in other words, client usernames are not necessarily case-sensitive. On a Unix server, however, usernames are case-sensitive: the user ANDY is different from the user andy. By default, Samba attacks this problem by doing the following:

1. Checking for a user account with the exact name sent by the client

2. Testing the username in all lowercase letters

3. Testing the username in lowercase letters with only the first letter capitalized

If you wish to have Samba attempt more combinations of upper- and lowercase letters, you can use the username level global configuration option. This option takes an integer value that specifies how many letters in the username should be capitalized when attempting to connect to a share. You can specify this option as follows:

[global]

username level = 3

In this case, Samba attempts all possible permutations of usernames having three capital letters. The larger the number, the more computations Samba has to perform to match the username, and the longer the authentication will take.

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