[Samba] Roaming profile, esp. laptops

[Paul Gienger]

James Fellows wrote:

>Hi Paul,
>
>I get your problem.
>My question is:  How do they access their profile NOT on the network?
>They shouldn't be able to. (They probably get an error but don't tell
>you)
>  
>
You can sure log in if you lose network connectivity, try to disconnect 
your cable sometime.  I'm pretty sure you get an error about using your 
locally cached profile however but I don't think it says anything about 
'whatever you do will be lost when you log out' but I could be wrong.

>In my samba domain here, I disabled caching of profiles,
>so there's never any conflicts or 'old' profiles left on any 
>machine.  Fresh upload every time.  If settings are lost, it's because 
>they were not saved.
>  
>
That won't really work since the laptop has to be usable away from the 
network.

>My solution would be to create a local user on the laptop and let them use
>that while NOT on the network.
>  
>
That would really screw with the technically semi-illiterate that can't 
seem to find anything in the first place when they log in twice.  Hell, 
these people wouldn't realize when they need to log in to which 'domain' 
entry and then would complain about not seeing their network drives when 
they are in.   Don't say 'they should be smarter' because I know every 
admin has at least 20% users that can't tell you where My Documents is 
really located and wouldn't understand half of the reason for the local 
user proposition.

>OR, disable roaming profiles and only have local ones.
>  
>
I've taken to doing this in a few locations, but then these people get 
no backup of data.

What I would think would / should happen is that a date check is done 
against the server files and only updates newer files from the server... 
or key off the NTUSER.DAT file or something and determine which profile 
is newer.  I realize this could very well be a client limitation. Maybe 
that's just too much to ask for.

(sorry James, you probably got a dupe of this)

>On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Paul Gienger wrote:
>
>  
>
>>You misunderstand my point, which may be my fault ;)  Said user goes 
>>home and does his work, sets up things the way they should be.  He comes 
>>in the next day, starts up his laptop and gets his desktop and settings 
>>from the last time he logged off 'in the office' ( I didn't make that 
>>part clear).  When you deal with salespeople and other types that may 
>>not be in the office for a week or two at a time they get a little testy 
>>when they all of the sudden start to lose things because the server 
>>overwrote their settings.
>>
>>I WANT them to be flexible, so mandatory profiles are not the solution.
>>
>>Joseph E. Werle wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>You could use mandatory profiles.  If your using XP on the laptop it 
>>>will use the cached version of the profile when the user logs onto the 
>>>domain and then will send the changes back to the server when he logs 
>>>off again.
>>>
>>>Paul Gienger wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Here's an issue I don't think I've seen come up since I've been 
>>>>trolling that is going to be a headache for me:
>>>>
>>>>Say I have a user on a laptop, when he is constantly on the network, 
>>>>everything is happy.  Say the user goes home, does some work, monkeys 
>>>>around with his settings, and comes back.  As soon as said user logs 
>>>>on he gets the copy of his profile from the last time he logged off.  
>>>>Does anyone else see the problem here?
>>>>
>>>>I would like to know what creative solutions people have come up with 
>>>>to get around the issue.  We currently use 2.2.8 but I'm going to 
>>>>push 3.0.x out Real Soon Now (TM), so if some negotiation has somehow 
>>>>been done in 3 to make this work better I'll shut up and go back to 
>>>>my hole.
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 
Paul Gienger                     Office: 701-281-1884
Applied Engineering Inc.         
Information Systems Consultant   Fax:    701-281-1322
URL: www.ae-solutions.com        mailto: pgienger at ae-solutions.com