Samba: Popular setup - would like some final clarity

[micaheli]

All,

I have a samba setup that has been working great for a long time. The problem is that I've been using user level security, and the need for guest only, share-level shares has been expressed. I would like to know precisely how to go about doing this. I am concerned about migrating from user level to share level. Not because of security; I trust everybody for the most part, I just would like a little more ease-of-use for most of them.

This desired setup is desired at my company by more than just our group. Many groups have desired this same thing. I'd like to make this happen for them, while at the same time, covering my own server's urgent needs..

Must be able to:
- have 100% public (guest) share without login/pass
- login to public shares supplying a user/pass to achieve read/write
- have written files in one share all be owned by the same local group (sticky bit?)

Those are some things that I would REALLY like and, dispite my fiddling and research, cannot figure out how to aquire ALL of them. Another annoyance is that when you set up share level access and you have a non-public share... clicking on it has a grayed out username field in XP with the "<machine>\Guest" account listed. Is there a known way to make it open up that grayed out field?

I need to fix this soon, any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

--Micah