man smb.conf, section encrypt passwords omits an important fact.

I have been told on the mailing list by Jerry Carter, that to make Samba
authenticate solely against /etc/passwd (i. e. not use smbpasswd, tdb or any
other passdb backends, just /etc/passwd), I have to specify encrypt passwords =
no in the smb.conf.

There is nothing written about a connection between "encrypt passwords" setting
and mechanism of authentication in man smb.conf. I think this should be added
there, some explanation explaining how the mechanism of authentication in samba
server is being dependent on the value of this setting.

It is written that if we want to use encyprted passwords, we have to provide
smbpasswd or equivalent. What is missing here is that if we want not to use
smbpasswd, we have to say encrypted passwords = no.