[Samba] Roaming Profiles with Samba PDC

[John H Terpstra]

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Scott Millhisler wrote:

> First of all, I would like to thank you for your prompt reply.
>
> Unfortunately you lost me on a couple of issues and I am hoping that you can clarify them.
>
> We exchanged:
>
> >> # User profile path
> >>   logon path = \\%N\home\%u\ntprofile
> >
> >Suggest you try:
> >
> >	logon path = \\%L\home\%U\ntprofile
> >
> >Make absolutely sure that the directory 'ntprofile' exists (and is
> >writable) - BEFORE - the uyser logs on.
> >
> >A MUCH better suggestion is to put profiles in a 'profiles' share, that is
> >the way it is done in MS Windows land. It allows you to set more suitable
> >smb.conf parameters for profile handling for the shared resource for which
> >it may be needed.
> >
> >In this case you would have a share like:
> >
> >[Profiles]
> >        comment = Roaming Profile Share
> >        path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
> >        read only = No
> >        profile acls = Yes
> >
> >and the following to match it:
> >
> >        logon path = \\%L\Profiles\%U
>
> In this exchange you indicate that it would be better to have a
> 'profiles' share, contrasting it to my global definition of logon path.
> I am not sure if you saw it or not, but in my original message it was a
> profiles share defined at the end.  It did differ from yours in that the
> path pointed to the science have used in the global area.

Your logon path directs that profiles into the users' home directory into
a subdirectory called "ntprofile".

Your original profiles share will thus not be used at all.

> I created a profiles directory under the samba directory as indicated
> above.  Do I need to create subdirectories in that profiles directory
> for all of the users before they logon or will Windows create the
> subdirectories as needed during a user's first logon?

Yes. You need to create those directories so that Samba can store the
profiles. In the absence of the proper directory the profile will not be
written to your profiles share.

>
> Also, you wrote to set my logon path to \\%L\Profiles\%U to match 'it'.
> What 'it' are you referring to?  Should this logon path the set in the
> profiles share definitions or the global, thus replacing the one I have
> there now?  I currently do not have a profiles directory off of root,
> which is where I assume that would be referring to, but I can certainly
> create one.  Either that, or do I totally misunderstand the usage of %L?

Your "logon path" settings need to match a storage are within your Samba
server file system. The 'it' refers to the "Profiles" share settings I
gave you.

In my case I store profiles under /var/lib/samba/profiles/'username'

The %U translates to the 'username'.

The %L is a macro that translates to the name be which you refer to the
samba server. So if your samba server is called 'FRED" and "logon path =
\\%L\Profiles\%U" and you access the Samba server by the name "FRED" then
it will map to \\FRED\Profiles\'username'. Thus if your username is
'jbloggs', the full profile path will be: \\FRED\Profiles\jbloggs.

Given my path statement in the [Profiles] definition this will result in
the files being written to (or read from):

	/var/lib/samba/profiles/jbloggs

Does that clear the air now?

- John T.
-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org