[Samba] Looking for large-ish deployment advice

[Quentin Hartman]

> Trying to understand this a bit better before I comment...

Thanks for taking the time.

> First, won't roving users be disappointed if you have separate home 
> directories in each building?  Won't they expect that a document on which 
> they worked in one building be available when they go to the next building?

That's part of the core mechanic that I am trying to work out. When a
user logs on, the logon script "figures out" what their home building is
and connects their home directory appropriately. In the case of logging
in at their home building, it connects to their local server, in the
case of logging in at another building, it connects to the appropriate
server in another building. Using separate domains, this is easy, and
somewhat the natural behavior. I would like to use a single domain to
keep management overhead lower if possible. It's the "figuring out" part
that I have to work out yet.

> Second, are you contemplating using roaming profiles, and if so, are these 
> profiles likely to be large? E.g., users store big files on their Desktop, 
> and/or have 200MB Outlook pst files, etc....

I am contemplating roaming profiles, though they are unlikely to be
large in most cases. To answer your examples specifically, as far as I
know most users are not in the habit of saving files on their desktops,
and we do not use Outlook.

> Lastly, if I read your post correctly you have T-1 speeds between buildings.  
> That's a pretty fat pipe to fill, so why do you say the building-to-building 
> networks links are slow?

I suppose I left out an important point in my first post in that this
network has about 3000 users and just over 1000 computers on it. Many of
which who are working medium to large sized files stored in their home
directories. Between that and the large volume of Internet traffic, my
WAN links are pegged all day under the current setup, wherein there is a
cluster of NT4 servers all centrally located and all user data has to
traverse those links. During peak usage times, it can be painfully slow.

Another list member suggested using individual logon scripts, and as far
as I can tell at this point, that is the only solution that will work.
If that's the case, I then need to decide what's harder to manage, 10
seperate domains, or 3000+ individual logon scripts, where I have a very
high rate of user churn. Since this is for a public school district, I'm
nearly constantly creating and destroying accounts as students enroll
and depart.

-- 
-Regards-

-Quentin Hartman-

Technology Coordinator
South Lane School District
Cottage Grove, Oregon
Office- 541.767.3778
Mobile- 541-501-1197
qhartman at lane.k12.or.us