[Samba] Profile Location Best Practice

[John H Terpstra]

On Sunday 14 October 2007 20:38, deann corum wrote:
> >> Wasn't it the case a while back that if there were older clients on the
> >> network (Win95-Win98, etc.) that the Samba profile HAD to be inside the
> >> home directory?  Probably many Samba installations still have them there
> >> from those days if they've been using Samba long enough, and IF that was
> >> the case.  (?)
> >
> > I am not aware of any documentation that said that the Win9X profile HAD
> > to be stored in the users' home directory.  I'd appreciate a pointer to
> > where this is stated so ti can be fixed.
>
> I did not SAY the documentation said that, I simply asked if that was
> the case for roaming profiles and older clients! Thank you for your
> answer.  Documentation often does not explicity or implicity apply.
>
> >> Would having the profiles inside the home directory also cause slow
> >> logins, by chance with roaming profiles? We have issues with that EVEN
> >> when the roaming profiles are *not* large.
> >>
> >> Also, regarding where profiles should be stored, I wrote to this list a
> >> while back (5/17/07) regarding an Office 2007 read-only issue that was
> >> fixed by setting "profile acls = no" on the user's home directory. Well,
> >> it fixed the Office 2007 read-only problem but *broke* the roaming
> >> profiles.  Is the ONLY solution to this issue likely to be moving our
> >> hundreds of Samba profiles scattered across many servers into seperate
> >> directories?  OR, can/should this particular item be considered a Samba
> >> bug?
> >
> > How can it be a Samba bug, when it is the Windows client that can
> > disconnect its connections to network shares before the profile has been
> > written to the server?
>
> You misunderstand me. I was not referring to the disconnection issue but
> rather another issue related to where roaming profiles are stored.
> Please read the second paragraph above regarding Office 2007 read-only
> issue. THAT is what I asked about.  Sorry if I confused you.
>
> Having the profile inside the users home directory (and apparently some
> people *do* have Samba configured that way),  it is required that
> profile acls = yes be set on the directory where the profile is stored -
> wherever that is.
>
> When the profile is in the user's home directory and profile acls = yes
> is set, Office 2007 will save files to the home directory as read-only,
> causing the user to be unable to modify them after that. Setting profile
> acls = no fixes that problem - but breaks the roaming profile. I asked
> if the only solution to this is moving the roaming profiles out of home
> directories in this case?
>
> > Suggest you learn how Microsoft Windows NT4 and 200X network
> > infrastructures implement roaming profile support, then do the same with
> > a Samba-based environment.  If that fails - its a Samba bug.  If it
> > works, but your Samba configuration does not work I wonder where the bug
> > is!
>
> I suggest you learn to read thoroughly before answering please. Again
> you misunderstand me. I'm referring to the Office 2007 read-only issue I
> wrote about above in regards to where the user profile is kept, not the
> disconnection issue.
>
> > The Samba documentation was written to follow the same methods Microsoft
> > Windows NT4 domains implement roaming profile support.  If goes against
> > the flow of how Samba users would prefer to configure their networks
> > perhaps it is time for someone to contribute documentation that captures
> > that approach. What would be even better, is documentation of several
> > explicite case histories from large-scale working systems.
> >
> > How will rise to the occassion to help update the HOWTO and the ByExample
> > documents (books)?

Sorry. You are correct, I did not carefully read your posting. Mea Culpa.  

The Office 2007 issue may be a Samba bug.  What version of Samba are you 
using? What platform is your Samba running on?

Best practice has always been to keep the roamin profile separate from the 
user's home directory.

Even so, I believe the official documentation that deals with roaming profiles 
can benefit from a make-over and I welcome anyone who is willing to put 
his/her hand up to help refine this.

Cheers,
John T.

Cheers,
John T.