LPIC-2 File Sharing and Samba Practice Question
An administrator has configured Samba as a domain member for an Active Directory environment. For user authentication via winbind, which daemon must be running?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse the Samba suite daemons, assuming smbd handles all authentication tasks, but winbindd is the specific daemon required for AD domain member authentication and identity mapping.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
winbindd
In a Samba domain member configuration for Active Directory, the winbindd daemon is responsible for resolving user and group information from the Windows domain and providing authentication services via the Winbind protocol. It communicates with the Active Directory domain controller using DCE/RPC and LDAP to map Windows SIDs to Unix UIDs/GIDs, enabling seamless user authentication. Without winbindd running, winbind-based authentication (e.g., via PAM or nsswitch) will fail, even if smbd and nmbd are active.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
smbd
Why it's wrong here
smbd handles file sharing, not authentication resolution.
- ✗
samba
Why it's wrong here
The 'samba' service typically starts smbd, nmbd, and winbindd together.
- ✓
winbindd
Why this is correct
winbindd is required for user/group resolution from AD.
- ✗
nmbd
Why it's wrong here
nmbd provides NetBIOS name resolution, not authentication.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LPIC-2 practice question is part of Courseiva's free LPI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LPIC-2 exam.