[ILUG] Samba problem upgrading to Red Hat 7.3

[Ciaran Costelloe]

On versions of Red Hat up to 7.2, I have set up a directory accessible to
all our internal Windows network users by setting in smb.conf
security=share, guest account=everybody, and setting a share as:

[mypublicdir]
guest ok=yes
writable=yes
path=/

The problem I now have is that if I try to create the (necessary) step of
adding a user called "everybody", Red Hat 7.3 won't allow me to create the
user called everybody with a null password (it insists on six characters
minimum), which would allow users to access the share without having to log
on to the Samba server.

The obvious concern to some with this approach is security (to the root
dir), but it is not an issue - the sensitive stuff is on Netware servers,
which only require one logon to the group of servers, and in any event the
network is not publically-accessible.  I hate server-based backups (which
break too often), so I use a dedicated backup client which can backup any
accessible shares and restore them to any available server running any OS,
so root access is nice.

The sort of services I am running on the Linux box don't need security
anyway, but the users having to log on separately with a password to the
Linux box will be a pain.  Despite my relative lack of knowledge of Linux, I
don't want to switch to Netware, as Linux provides a bunch of services to
us.

Can I add a user "everybody" with a null password through devious means if
necessary without having to recompile the kernel (which is probably beyond
my knowledge, at least in the short-term)?

Ciaran