[Samba] Profile Location Best Practice

[deann corum]

>> Wasn't it the case a while back that if there were older clients on the
>> network (Win95-Win98, etc.) that the Samba profile HAD to be inside the
>> home directory?  Probably many Samba installations still have them there
>> from those days if they've been using Samba long enough, and IF that was
>> the case.  (?)
>>     
>
> I am not aware of any documentation that said that the Win9X profile HAD to be 
> stored in the users' home directory.  I'd appreciate a pointer to where this 
> is stated so ti can be fixed.
>
>   

I did not SAY the documentation said that, I simply asked if that was 
the case for roaming profiles and older clients! Thank you for your 
answer.  Documentation often does not explicity or implicity apply.
>> Would having the profiles inside the home directory also cause slow
>> logins, by chance with roaming profiles? We have issues with that EVEN
>> when the roaming profiles are *not* large.
>>
>> Also, regarding where profiles should be stored, I wrote to this list a
>> while back (5/17/07) regarding an Office 2007 read-only issue that was
>> fixed by setting "profile acls = no" on the user's home directory. Well,
>> it fixed the Office 2007 read-only problem but *broke* the roaming
>> profiles.  Is the ONLY solution to this issue likely to be moving our
>> hundreds of Samba profiles scattered across many servers into seperate
>> directories?  OR, can/should this particular item be considered a Samba
>> bug?
>>     
>
> How can it be a Samba bug, when it is the Windows client that can disconnect 
> its connections to network shares before the profile has been written to the 
> server?
>
>   
You misunderstand me. I was not referring to the disconnection issue but 
rather another issue related to where roaming profiles are stored. 
Please read the second paragraph above regarding Office 2007 read-only 
issue. THAT is what I asked about.  Sorry if I confused you.

Having the profile inside the users home directory (and apparently some 
people *do* have Samba configured that way),  it is required that 
profile acls = yes be set on the directory where the profile is stored - 
wherever that is. 

When the profile is in the user's home directory and profile acls = yes 
is set, Office 2007 will save files to the home directory as read-only, 
causing the user to be unable to modify them after that. Setting profile 
acls = no fixes that problem - but breaks the roaming profile. I asked 
if the only solution to this is moving the roaming profiles out of home 
directories in this case?

> Suggest you learn how Microsoft Windows NT4 and 200X network infrastructures 
> implement roaming profile support, then do the same with a Samba-based 
> environment.  If that fails - its a Samba bug.  If it works, but your Samba 
> configuration does not work I wonder where the bug is!
>   

I suggest you learn to read thoroughly before answering please. Again 
you misunderstand me. I'm referring to the Office 2007 read-only issue I 
wrote about above in regards to where the user profile is kept, not the 
disconnection issue.
> The Samba documentation was written to follow the same methods Microsoft 
> Windows NT4 domains implement roaming profile support.  If goes against the 
> flow of how Samba users would prefer to configure their networks perhaps it 
> is time for someone to contribute documentation that captures that approach.  
> What would be even better, is documentation of several explicite case 
> histories from large-scale working systems.
>
> How will rise to the occassion to help update the HOWTO and the ByExample 
> documents (books)?
>
> Cheers,
> John T
>