[RHEL 5] Why I'm getting the error "smbd Unable to open new log file /var/log/samba/machine.log: Permission denied" ?
Environment
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x
- Samba 3.0.33-3.28
Issue
Why I'm getting this error when some smbd process tries to open or write in the log file?
smbd Unable to open new log file /var/log/samba/machine.log: Permission denied
Resolution
The cause is the execution of the smbcontrol or smbd command when smbd runs as user uid (not root uid). When smbd runs as user uid, the log file cannot be opened again because there are no right to write to the directory.
To solve the problem, extend the permissions of /var/log/samba/:
#chgrp "DOMAIN+domain users" /var/log/samba
#chmod 770 /var/log/samba
Root Cause
samba processes (smbcontrol, smbd) runing with a different user that is not root.
Diagnostic Steps
Verify if there is any smbd process running with a non-root user:
# ps aux | grep smbd
root 22000 0.0 1.9 185660 20448 ? S Sep30 2:38 smbd -D
12980 22802 1.3 0.5 172552 5420 ? S 11:42 0:00 smbd -D
root 24635 0.0 0.6 172352 6280 ? S 09:31 0:06 smbd -D
root 24728 0.1 0.6 175148 6964 ? S 10:23 0:05 smbd -D
15400 25347 0.0 0.5 172144 5664 ? S 11:15 0:00 smbd -D
root 27677 0.0 1.3 211856 14100 ? S Oct01 2:38 smbd -D
14414 27731 0.1 0.7 173084 7208 ? S Oct01 5:44 smbd -D
If yes, you will notice the Permission Denied message in log files.
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