[Samba] XP/W2K on Samba 3

Aaron Kincer kincera at gmail.com
Thu Oct 5 13:53:30 GMT 2006


You can easily redirect the typical data store for user documents (i.e. 
My Documents) to any network share you want. That isn't difficult. 
Additionally, you can configure just about any mail client on the planet 
(Outlook included) to put the data store there. No big deal. There are 
several problems with that:

1) If the network is down, mail isn't available (or any documents in My 
Documents for that matter).
2) If this is a road warrior, mail isn't available while they are on the 
road.
3) This doesn't solve the "application settings" requisite that I 
thought I understood.

You can solve #1 and #2 by any number of synchronization options out 
there and direct the mail client to a local data store and sync the data 
to a network store. #3 is a whole different issue. I am not aware of any 
other reliable method of retaining settings from desktop to desktop 
(assuming a fat client) than roaming profiles. If you are using the 
standard store for some mail clients (Outlook for example) that creates 
the massive data push/pull I mentioned. You can work around that with 
some planning by putting all heavy stores such as email in places that 
aren't profile specific (i.e. not in C:\Documents and 
Settings\username\.....).

Doing that creates even more headaches if you are concerned about 
security for user separation and would require quite a bit of work. Oh, 
and let's not forget the non-homogenous client issues.

Doug VanLeuven wrote:
> Aaron Kincer wrote:
>> I am having trouble envisioning a network where people are constantly
>> signing onto different computers (outside of schools and libraries). If
>> users move around that much, perhaps a VNC/Citrix/Terminal Services 
>> approach
>> would be better.
>>
>> Roaming profiles are a solution to a problem that existed before 
>> email boxes
>> measured in hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes. They will work (for
>> Windows clients), but can bring your network to its knees. And as 
>> mentioned,
>> the mixing of client OS has an amusing effect sometimes.
> Think certificates.  Certificates encrypt files, establish VPN's, sign 
> & encrypt email, things like that.  There are long standing 
> alternatives to local store for email.
> The main and easiest way to keep one's certificates in windows is to 
> use roaming profiles else manually export and import and manually 
> renew.  Actually kind of cutting edge, not a throwback to earlier times.
>
> Users don't typically move around, but what if the hard drive fails?  
> Does one roll out windows with something like ghost and consider 
> workstations disposable?  If yes, the certificates and any private 
> user data are lost.  System admins move around.  Want to use the 
> machine in the conference room for a presentation.  Frequently easier 
> with roaming profiles.
>
> Regards, Doug
>



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