[Samba] Windows 2000 user profiles and Samba PDC

[Carter Braxton]

Although I've been using Samba with Linux and Windows 9x for some time,
now I need to deal with integrating Windows 2000 workstations into the
mix and I'm having a lot of aggravation with user profiles. I don't
know if this trouble is specific to Samba or whether it's another "This
behavior is by design" "feature" of Win2000.

Windows 2000 has no apparent problem joining the domain and creating the
machine account, allowing users on that machine to subsequently log onto
the domain.  But what happens is that when logging onto the Samba domain,
even using a pre-existing Win2000 user name, you wind up with a completely
new user profile that is lacking all of the desktop items and settings
previously configured.

In addition, even if the user is "Administrator" or member of the
Administrator group (Samba superuser and the local system's Administrator
group), he or she no longer has privileges to modify anything substantive
on the local machine. In order to make any changes in something like, say,
dialup networking for an ADSL connection, you have to log onto the local
machine rather than the Samba domain to do the modifications -- then when
you log back onto Samba under the same name, all the changes are gone!

Is this the way this is supposed to work? Is there a way I can have
a Win2000 user log onto the Samba domain and still retain his/her
configuration as well as any administrative rights on the local system?

The server is Samba 2.2.5 running on RedHat Linux 7.3 with a 2.4.19
generic kernel.  The workstation(s) in question are running Windows 2000
Professional, Service Pack 2, with local rather than roaming profiles
specified.  (So far I've only been experimenting with one Win2000 system
for fear of screwing several machines up!)

Thanks in advance for any help with this!

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Carter Braxton - cbraxton at libertyworksradio.com
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