This option allows the administrator to chose which backend will be used for storing user and possibly group information. This allows you to swap between different storage mechanisms without recompile. The parameter value is divided into two parts, the backend's name, and a 'location' string that has meaning only to that particular backed. These are separated by a : character. Available backends can include: smbpasswd - The old plaintext passdb backend. Some Samba features will not work if this passdb backend is used. Takes a path to the smbpasswd file as an optional argument. tdbsam - The TDB based password storage backend. Takes a path to the TDB as an optional argument (defaults to passdb.tdb in the directory. ldapsam - The LDAP based passdb backend. Takes an LDAP URL as an optional argument (defaults to ldap://localhost) LDAP connections should be secured where possible. This may be done using either Start-TLS (see ) or by specifying ldaps:// in the URL argument. Multiple servers may also be specified in double-quotes. Whether multiple servers are supported or not and the exact syntax depends on the LDAP library you use. Examples of use are: passdb backend = tdbsam:/etc/samba/private/passdb.tdb or multi server LDAP URL with OpenLDAP library: passdb backend = ldapsam:"ldap://ldap-1.example.com ldap://ldap-2.example.com" or multi server LDAP URL with Netscape based LDAP library: passdb backend = ldapsam:"ldap://ldap-1.example.com ldap-2.example.com" tdbsam