[Samba] Roaming Profiles Load Very Slowly

[Greg Koch]

I was considering doing this, but wanted to see if I could get them to 
work regularly.  After fighting with Windows for days, I decided to just 
do it this way, but it still takes a very LONG time (5 min) to login - I 
tested it, and it is using the samba shares for the directories (the 
files are written to the server almost instantaneously, which I think is 
the best way for the profiles to work anyway).

I updated NTUSER.DAT to use the files on the server directly, disabled 
loading the files with gpedit.msc, and disabled offline file sync.

There is obviously some sort of disconnect between the clients and the 
server.

Any ideas??


Gar Nelson wrote:
> Greg, this is old, but I found it quite useful. 
> http://www.css.taylor.edu/~nehresma/samba.html
>
> We've had two problems with roaming profiles. The first is that staff 
> members store all kinds of stuff in their profile. The above document, 
> about halfway down, "Profile changes" helped out here greatly.
>
> The second problem that we had was Windows XP offline file 
> synchronization. You can find that in Start -> All Programs -> 
> Accessories -> Synchronization.  Our systems defaulted to turning it 
> on. Manually going in and turning it all off (use the "setup" button 
> too, more stuff there) made a dramatic difference.
>
> Good Luck.
> Gar
>
> Greg Koch wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> Looking for a bit of help!
>>
>> I have been using Linux for a while as a hobby, and can get around it 
>> pretty quickly.  I have created a Gentoo Samba server and set it as 
>> PDC with roaming profiles (there are several other services running 
>> on the server as well).  I can login with my XP machines and the 
>> profile is downloaded to the machine but it is VERY VERY VERY slow.  
>> After a login is started, there is a blank blue screen (~4min), then 
>> the dialog that says "Loading your personal settings..."(~7min), and 
>> another that says "Applying your personal settings..."(~6min).  The 
>> whole login process takes ~15 minutes with any user.  The server is 
>> running an AMD64 2GHz and the client is AMD Athlon 1.32GHz.  I have 
>> used these clients on a Windows 2003 Server with AD and roaming 
>> profiles before and it didn't take anywhere near this amount of time 
>> (usually logon was <1Min).All network drives are mapped properly 
>> (home and other shares through login.bat) Logoff seems to only take 
>> ~30sec and IS storing the information to the server correctly.
>>
>> I have searched and searched through Samba docs and Google, and I 
>> just can't find anyone that has a viable solution for me.
>>
>> Does anyone have a suggestion or solution?
>>