This samba problem (windows machines cannot connect to gentoo server) seems to have followed a recent update including samba.
qlop shows: Mon Nov 1 05:10:33 2010 >>> net-fs/samba-3.5.6 Usually I've found I might need to redo passwords with smbpasswd. This time, that is not sufficient. Looking at the logs... which I might add seem ungodly full more or less useless gunk.... I'm not seeing anything that appears to be an error or rejected connection... in fact it appears to be saying the connection was successful but I'm by no means competent to determine that. I've included a snippet below, but let me say that I first restarted samba, then rm'ed all log* files under /var/log/samba. Then went to a windows machine and attempted to connect. Came back to gentoo and scanned thru the logs. 3 were from that attempt judging by name or ip. This snippet starts from the very top of the newly created log and appears to be showing the connection succeeding?: [2010/11/12 17:32:11.898234, 3] smbd/process.c:1485(process_smb) Transaction 0 of length 108 (0 toread) [2010/11/12 17:32:11.899792, 3] libsmb/ntlmssp.c:65(debug_ntlmssp_flags) Got NTLMSSP neg_flags=0xe2088297 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901339, 3] libsmb/ntlmssp.c:747(ntlmssp_server_auth) Got user=[harry] domain=[m2] workstation=[M2] len1=24 len2=260 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901585, 3] smbd/map_username.c:188(map_username) Mapped user harry to reader [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901709, 3] auth/auth.c:216(check_ntlm_password) check_ntlm_password: Checking password for unmapped user [m2]\[har...@[m2] with the new password interface [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901757, 3] auth/auth.c:219(check_ntlm_password) check_ntlm_password: mapped user is: [reader]\[read...@[m2] [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901820, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:210(push_sec_ctx) push_sec_ctx(0, 0) : sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 1 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.901869, 3] smbd/uid.c:429(push_conn_ctx) push_conn_ctx(0) : conn_ctx_stack_ndx = 0 [...] Many lines skipped here [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905698, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:418(pop_sec_ctx) pop_sec_ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 1 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905762, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:418(pop_sec_ctx) pop_sec_ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905804, 3] auth/auth.c:265(check_ntlm_password) check_ntlm_password: sam authentication for user [harry] succeeded [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905841, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:210(push_sec_ctx) push_sec_ctx(0, 0) : sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 1 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905875, 3] smbd/uid.c:429(push_conn_ctx) push_conn_ctx(0) : conn_ctx_stack_ndx = 0 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905904, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:310(set_sec_ctx) setting sec ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 1 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905960, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:418(pop_sec_ctx) pop_sec_ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.905996, 2] auth/auth.c:304(check_ntlm_password) check_ntlm_password: authentication for user [harry] -> [reader] -> [reader] succeeded [2010/11/12 17:32:11.906055, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:210(push_sec_ctx) push_sec_ctx(0, 0) : sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 1 [2010/11/12 17:32:11.906135, 3] smbd/uid.c:429(push_conn_ctx) push_conn_ctx(0) : conn_ctx_stack_ndx = 0 [...] gobs more skipped... then this appears when the windows dialog finally gives up the ghost. [2010/11/12 17:58:55.756748, 3] smbd/connection.c:31(yield_connection) Yielding connection to [2010/11/12 17:58:55.756821, 3] smbd/connection.c:42(yield_connection) deleting connection record returned NT_STATUS_NOT_FOUND [2010/11/12 17:58:55.757047, 3] smbd/server.c:902(exit_server_common) Server exit (normal exit)