To the newcomer, Samba’s command line user interface appears to be a haphazard jumble of scripts and binaries with options and design principles that fade in and out of use according to some esoteric pattern. $ smbclient --help | grep '\-k' -k, --kerberos Use kerberos $ ldbsearch --help | grep '\-k' -k, --kerberos=STRING Use Kerberos, -k [yes|no] A corresponding smb.conf option has been added: client use kerberos = desired|required|off