Username in environment variable

[Charles N. Owens]

Gerry George wrote:

> I seem to recall reading something about this, but can't find it from the
> archives.
>
> How does one get the username?  I wish to set the environment variable
> USERNAME to use it for various applications and scripts.  This would be set
> in the login script.  The standard Samba variables do not work as the
> Windows client, where the login script executes, is unaware of any Samba
> variables.

The technique that I use is to set up the netlogon share such that it calls a
perl script as the connection is being setup (specified via the preexec
directive).  This script dynamically generates a client-specific logon script
which includes DOS commands to

   * set environment variables
   * set up drive and printer mappings (via the net use command)
   * call other scripts that perform standard functions

Per-client configuration information is maintained in a NIS map that the script
queries to determine how to build the script.

We've been using this technique for about four years with good success.  At
some point I plan to move the configuration info into an LDAP directory and do
other enhancements (e.g. NT/W2K support).  I'd be happy to share the script as
is (kinda crufty) if there is interest.

Here's the pertinent parts of smb.conf:
[globals]
   ...
   domain logons = yes
   logon script = scripts\dynamic\%d.bat
   ...

[netlogon]
   path = /user/canaan/smb/netlogon
   browseable = no
   writeable = no
   force user = nobody
   preexec = /usr/local/tenet/sbin/mklogscript %d %U %M %m %a
   postexec = /bin/rm /user/canaan/smb/netlogon/scripts/dynamic/%d.bat

--
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  Charles N. Owens                               Email: owensc at enc.edu
                                            http://www.enc.edu/~owensc
  Network & Systems Administrator
  Information Technology Services  "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's
  Eastern Nazarene College         best friend.  Inside of a dog it's
                                   too dark to read." - Groucho Marx
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