[Samba] many servers and mobile users - "always use the most fresh user profile" - ideas?

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

Gautier, B (Bob) wrote:

(...)

>>> How about setting sambaProfilePath for a user at logout 
>> time, based on
>>> the location they are logging off from?  And updating it if you get
>>> around to replicating the profile to a central site before 
>> they logon
>>> again?
>> Only half of it is fine. We have two things:
>>
>> 1) user should download the profile from the server with the newest 
>> profile (either local or a remote one)
>> 2) user should upload the profile to the local server *only*
>>
>> So, it will work only if we can change the 
>> "sambaProfilePath:" value to 
>> the local one after user logs in - which is not a problem, 
>> but I'm not 
>> sure if the Windows client will respect that (which I'm going to find 
>> out now).

Tada, this seems to work, I just need to polish some bits.

I tested it on a local server only, without trying to change anything in 
LDAP.

To "reproduce" fetching a profile from one location on logon, and 
uploading the profile to another location on logoff, do:

1) logon (that was hard, wasn't it?) :)

2) launch regedit

take a look at this key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows 
NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<USER-SID>\CentralProfile

It contains the value where the profile is stored, let's say, 
\\server\profiles\profile1

Now change this value to something else, like \\server\profiles\profile2

This can be scripted of course.

3) quit regedit
4) logoff
5) you will see your profile being saved to \\server\profiles\profile2, 
while it was read from \\server\profiles\profile1

6) after logoff, write to LDAP and change the "sambaProfilePath:" to 
your current (newest) location.


That's the theory, perhaps it needs a couple of hours of scripting and 
testing, but I guess it should work like this. Anyone who would like to 
test it? :)


I got a reply from a Microsoft representative today suggesting that I 
should replace all the servers to Win2k3 R2 which contain "Branch Office 
Infrastructure Solution ©" which lets me do that...



-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org