[Samba] XP/W2K on Samba 3

[Paul-Erik Törrönen]

I'm going to side on B_Kloss here, since I grew frustrated with the
local profiles a long time ago.

On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 19:46 +0200, Peter Ulrich Kruppa wrote:
> > This is working fine, but as soon as a user is logging into the
> domain on one of the WIN2000 or XP-clients for the first time on this
> client, the client is creating a local user-directory.
> Are you sure this is a problem?
> As long as you have enough diskspace, I don't see what should be 

Remember that all the settings are also per computer, which in turn
means that the user will in the end do a set up of his desktop n times
(n equals the computers available). Also the application settings need
to be manually copied/set each time. This becomes very frustrating in no
time for the normal user, and roaming profiles can fix that. And if the
user decides to change some setting, well...

However there are a few things which needs to be addressed, as pointed
earlier.

1. The mixing of W2k and WXP will create some fabulous fireshows,
non-lethal but nonetheless spectacular.
2. Due to the way how the profile is managed in Windows,
copy-all-on-login-from-server, copy-all-on-logout-to-server, the normal
user must be made aware of this. Don't save anything on the desktop,
instead use the X: (automatically mounted to \\yourserver\<user>).
Minimize the browser cache. Configure applications to explicitly use a
local tmp-dir (usually setting the TMP and TEMP-variables on the
workstation suffices). And anything else that minimizes the size of the
profile directory.
3. Occasionally the profile goes *bonk* on the workstation. Usually
removing the local copy is enough but nonetheless requires
administrative action.

And probably some other things which my scarred memory supresses.

As for setting up the shared profiles, the keywords in smb.conf are:

[Global]
    logon drive = X:
    logon path = \\%L\profiles\%U
    logon script = scripts\logon.bat

[netlogon]
    path = /path/to/netlogon
    read only = no
    nt acl support = Yes

[profiles]
    comment = Roaming Profile Share
    path = /path/to/profiles
    read only = no
    profile acls = Yes
    nt acl support = Yes

Poltsi