[Samba] samba 3.0.23: %p not working?

[Marc Petitmermet]

RedHat AS 4, 2.6.9-22.0.2.ELsmp
samba3-3.0.24-30 (RPMs from http://enterprisesamba.com/)

Dear list members

Several times a day we have interrupts up to 30 seconds. This is  
quite annoying. We have learnt from the mailing list that others had  
the same problem. This might be because we have the users home  
directory automounted by nfs first and than shared by samba. As  
almost everybody has their physical home directory on the same server  
we do not need local automounts, we could share them directly with  
samba. I.e. instead of homedir -> nfs -> samba we'd like to do the  
following homedir -> samba.

The problem is that we cannot get this working properly. We have the  
information stored in NIS and according to the documentation we can  
just use %p for the path for the homes. When users are logged in and  
we restart smbd than smbstatus shows us corret SharePaths. But when a  
user logs in the homedir for this user is automounted to /home/ 
<user>. In the share definition for [profiles] the variable %p cannot  
be used at all.

Is %p not working properly or do we use it not correctly? How could  
we achieve direct samba sharing of homedirs without nfs mounts but  
with the information stored in NIS? Thanks for any kind of advise.

Kind regards,
Marc


[global]
    workgroup = MYDOMAIN
    netbios name = MYSERVER
    domain logons = yes
    server string = MYDOMAIN SMB-Server %v
    hosts allow = 127.0.0.1 82.130. 172.31. 129.132.
    log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
    log level = 1
    max log size = 2500

    security = user
    bind interfaces only = yes
    interfaces = bond0:0
    smb ports = 139
    client NTLMv2 auth = yes
    debug level = 0

    password server = %L
    password level = 8
    username level = 8
    encrypt passwords = yes
    passdb backend = smbpasswd:/etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
    unix password sync = no

    local master = yes
    os level = 65
    domain master = yes
    preferred master = yes

    logon path = \\%L\profiles\.profile.%a\e\profile.pds
    logon drive = P:
    logon script = mapdrives1.bat
    name resolve order = lmhosts wins hosts bcast
    wins support = yes
    dns proxy = yes

    nis homedir = yes
    homedir map = auto.home

    display charset = UTF8
    unix charset = UTF8
    dos charset = CP850
    preserve case = yes
    short preserve case = yes
    default case = lower
    case sensitive = no

[homes]
    comment = %U's Data on %L Group %G
    path = %p                 <-- does not work
    browseable = no
    writable = yes
    create mask = 0700
    directory mask = 0700
    follow symlinks = yes
    locking = no
    oplocks = yes

[profiles]
    path = %p                 <-- does not work
    csc policy = disable
    browseable = no
    writable = yes
    create mask = 0700
    directory mask = 0700