testparm.exe -v produces an invalid smb.conf if the winbind separator character is the default "\"

[Herwig Bauernfeind]

Reproduction scenario:

1.) Remove any winbind separator line from your smb.conf.

2.) Create a complete smb.conf somewhere by using testparm -v >smb.conf
Now your smb.conf will have a line

winbind separator = \

in your new smb.conf which is the default and perfectly valid. Copy this newly created smb.conf over the one you used before.

3.) Now run testparm -v >smb_broken.conf on that smb.conf again: It will choke and find the following error:

ERROR: the 'winbind separator' parameter must be a single character.

In smb_broken.conf you will find the following line, which is invalid:

winbind separator = 	winbind cache time = 300

Current workaround: Don't use the default winbind separator, use | instead.

Nasty side effect: This breaks every program that uses testparm.exe as a syntax checker in verbose mode for smb.conf

[Herwig Bauernfeind]

Just found out that this is a cross platform bug.

[Herwig Bauernfeind]

​http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2007-April/053097.html ​http://threebit.net/mail-archive/samba/msg01149.html ​http://markmail.org/message/ij6te2otzywfegzl

I looked into the official Samba 3.3.3 source code and found no evidence that this is fixed there, so it does not make sense to try to fix it here, as any utility that uses testparm.exe as a syntax checker for smb.conf (such as sscc.exe) will have to deal with that problem.