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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T10:02:00+00:00

I’m trying to enable Account Sharing from terminal. I can’t figure out how to

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I’m trying to enable Account Sharing from terminal. I can’t figure out how to do that.

This will be used from inside an application I’m currently programming. The application creates a hidden user, then should enable SMB sharing for this user. Later, I need to connect to this share via another server using SMB.

I need the same effect as going to System Preferences → Sharing → File Sharing → enable any account for sharing using SMB.

enter image description here

What I already have:

  • I know how to create a hidden user
  • I already know how to create individual shared folders, but not account sharing.

What I’ve already tried:

  • I already tried to scan the system for last modified files to find some information in Samba config files, but it didn’t help.

What I don’t need:

  • I can’t do this with SSH. The folders need to be shared via SMB.
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    THIS WORKS FOR OS X 10.5, 10.6, 10.7

    First type this in terminal

    pwpolicy -u SomeUser -sethashtypes SMB-NT on

    SomeUser can also be hidden, it doesn’t matter. This gives the same effect like enabling that checkbox as shown in the picture above.

    After that:

    dscl . -passwd /Users/SomeUser "UserPassword"

    This gives the same effect, as enabling it from System Preferences, when it asks for a password. It’s the same like filling in that password.

    If you want to disable SMB on that account (SomeUser can be hidden again):

    pwpolicy -u SomeUser -sethashtypes SMB-NT off

    P.S. In Mac OS X Lion, they changed their implementation for SMB (SMBX). But be aware that it still uses the same Share Points mechanism for creating a share, and Directory Service is responsible for it. Also it still works the same way for enabling SMB on account!

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