[Samba] Laptop users as domain members; profiles

[Scott Werschke]

For the record, you are right.  I have tested logging on to the domain with
cached credentials and it also works with just a local profile.  Of course,
with either roaming or local profiles at least one logon to the domain (when
actually connectied to the domain controller) is required before cached
credentials are available.

I am still a bit confused by the security policy - "number of previous
logons to cache (in case domain controller is unavailable)".   The knowledge
base article -

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gp/579.asp

seemed to also indicate that this puts a limit on the number of times cached
credentials can be used.  Yet,  I set it to two and was able to logon to the
domain (while disconnected from the network) 13 times before I decided that
was good enough for me.  Seems there is no real limit.  Maybe this just
applies when a Windows Server is used as PDC.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug MacFarlane" <madmac at orbent.com>
To: "Scott Werschke" <scott at werschkes.com>; <samba at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 3:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Samba] Laptop users as domain members; profiles


>
> Go ahead and add them to the domain.
>
> Once they have logged on to the domain once, they can disconnect from the
> domain and still log onto it.  They will get a message that "No Domain
> Controller Was Available to Authenticate Your Logon .  .  . You have been
> logged on with cached information."
>
> Profiles will get handled properly - when they come back to the domain,
the
> local profile is newer than the server-based one, so it will use the local
> one, and write it back to the server when they log off.
>
> madmac
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Werschke" <scott at werschkes.com>
> To: <samba at lists.samba.org>
> Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 4:28 PM
> Subject: [Samba] Laptop users as domain members; profiles
>
>
> I would like to implement Samba as a PDC in our organization, but am
> wrestling with how to handle laptop users.
>
> If I join them to the domain and give them a domain account, I will still
> need to allow them a local account so that they can logon on the road.
This
> means that they will have two distinct accounts and two distinct profiles.
> I could initially make the two profiles identical by copying the existing
> profile to the domain profile or copying the existing profile to the
default
> profile before the domain profile is created, but subsequent changes to
the
> local profile would not be reflected in the domain profile and vice versa.
> I anticipate that this could cause great headaches for users and
> administrators.  If a user created or edited documents, added e-mail
> contacts or messages in outlook express or outlook, etc. as a domain user
> while in the office, these changes would not be seen when they logged in
on
> the road as a local user.  I am aware that I could have the users login on
> the road as domain users using cached credentials, but to my knowledge
(and
> experiments seem to verify this) caching domain credentials is limited to
> the use of roaming profiles.  I would like to avoid what seem to me to be
a
> lot of headaches with roaming profiles, i.e., potential loss of data,
> extensive logon time, etc.  Further, there appears to be a limit to the
> number of previous logons to cache - 50.  I don't have the power to limit
> the time of the trips our executives take or the number of times they are
> allowed to logon on the road.
>
> The best solution I can come up with now is to remap there My Documents
> folder, Oulook express store folder and Outlook .pst files for both
accounts
> to locations outside of the profiles.  This is O.K. except the additional
> work in setting up the client, the potential that I have missed something
> critical that should be "non-exclusive" to the two profiles, and that I
> don't have anyway of forcing them to login to the domain when they are in
> the office.  They could accidentally or intentionally login as a local
user
> in the office, and I would not be able to track usage in the office or
> utilize logon scripts.
>
> I am aware that some organizations seem to have a policy of simply not
> adding laptops to the domain, but with Samba this would also prevent me
from
> utilizing logon scripts.
>
> Any ideas would be appreciated.
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