Shared Registry problem

[Simon Hyde]

On Mon, 23 Feb 1998 21:39:46 +1100, you wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have to following problem :
>
>I have multiple win95 computer configured such that the user profile is on
>the samba server.
>I made one general account that multiple users can access simultaneously.
>It is configured such that the profile is never saved at end of the
>session.
>
>I had the problem that the user.dat part of the profile has to be accessed
>in write mode (if not : dialog box telling registry had problem, and have
>to restore from the backup). Ok i solved it by preventing those users
>using regedit.
>
>The problem is now that they are accessing user.dat simultaneously, so
>trying to write it too. If samba locked the file, win95 says the same
>thing (problem with registry, try to restore thye backup).
>
>How can I prevent this?
>
>
>Other problem : is there a way to prevent users to reboot win95 in MS-DOS
>mode, without preventing them to use DOS windows...
>Because if they boot in dos, they can access regedit and so mess up
>registry...

They don't need regedit to edit the registry, simply installing a program,
or wwriting a tiny program in C will allow them to alter it.

I would recommend a completely different approach. Instead of having them
all sharing the same physical directory, store a profile have a profiles
share something like:

[profiles]
   path=/pchome/profiles/temp/%u:%m
   root preexec=/pchome/profiles/create %u %m
   root postexec=/pchome/profiles/rm -rf "/pchome/profiles/temp/%u:%m"
   read only= no
   ...other options....

Then in /pchome/profiles/create put a simple shell script which simply
creates a symbolic link into /pchome/profiles/master for every
subdirectory/file of the main profiles directory but the user.dat, which it
copies from /pchome/profiles/master and chowns to the username of the
connecting user. Make sure that only root (or no one) has write access to
/pchome/profiles/master, and this will be honoured. This way the user can
do what they like with the registry and it will be thrown in the bin when
they logout.
-----------------------------------------------------------
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.
On Unix, I am limited only by my knowledge.