In some situations it is unavoidable that a user's Windows logon name will differ from the login ID that user has on the Samba server. It is possible to create a special file on the Samba server that will permit the Windows user name to be mapped to a different UNIX/Linux user name. The smb.conf file must also be amended so that the [global] stanza contains the parameter:

username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

The content of the /etc/samba/smbusers file is shown here:

parsonsw: "William Parsons"
marygee: geeringm

In this example the Windows user account “William Parsons” will be mapped to the UNIX user parsonsw, and the Windows user account “geeringm” will be mapped to the UNIX user marygee.