Samba: smbd fails to start

[ucfagls]

Hi,

Having reset-up a print server from installation disks today, I did something stupid and blindly copied the contents of /etc/samba from the previous installation into the new installation. (New installation is a fresh FC4 updated to latest updates using YUM)

Now smbd refuses to start (nmbd starts OK). I am currently using a blank smb.conf file and the smb.conf file from the old installation. testparm doesn't report any errors in the smb.conf from the old installation.

This is what I see in the shell when restarting smb:

/sbin/service smb restart

Shutting down SMB services:                                [FAILED]
Shutting down NMB services:                                [  OK  ]
Starting SMB services: /etc/init.d/functions: line 83:  2945 Aborted  $nice $*
                                                           [FAILED]
Starting NMB services:                                     [  OK  ]

And this is the relevant part of the log file:

[2006/02/15 15:36:42, 0] lib/util.c:smb_panic2(1525)
  BACKTRACE: 7 stack frames:
   #0 smbd(smb_panic2+0x8a) [0x72507c]
   #1 smbd(smb_panic+0x19) [0x7252c2]
   #2 smbd(get_global_sam_sid+0x2bc) [0x6dd84c]
   #3 smbd(init_guest_info+0x65) [0x76b6be]
   #4 smbd(main+0x2a7) [0x7a6fb3]
   #5 /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xdf) [0x408d5f]
   #6 smbd [0x5a54f1]
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] smbd/server.c:main(798)
  smbd version 3.0.14a-2 started.
  Copyright Andrew Tridgell and the Samba Team 1992-2004
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] passdb/secrets.c:secrets_init(64)
  Failed to open /etc/samba/secrets.tdb
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] passdb/secrets.c:secrets_init(64)
  Failed to open /etc/samba/secrets.tdb
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] passdb/secrets.c:secrets_init(64)
  Failed to open /etc/samba/secrets.tdb
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] passdb/machine_sid.c:pdb_generate_sam_sid(176)
  pdb_generate_sam_sid: Failed to store generated machine SID.
[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] lib/util.c:smb_panic2(1517)
  PANIC: Could not generate a machine SID

[2006/02/15 15:47:21, 0] lib/util.c:smb_panic2(1525)
  BACKTRACE: 7 stack frames:
   #0 smbd(smb_panic2+0x8a) [0x31c07c]
   #1 smbd(smb_panic+0x19) [0x31c2c2]
   #2 smbd(get_global_sam_sid+0x2bc) [0x2d484c]
   #3 smbd(init_guest_info+0x65) [0x3626be]
   #4 smbd(main+0x2a7) [0x39dfb3]
   #5 /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xdf) [0x6a5d5f]
   #6 smbd [0x19c4f1]

Can anyone see what is wrong and how I can rectify this problem?

Thanks in advance,

G