[Samba] MSDFS on [homes] share for two samba servers

[Michal Bruncko]

Hello Jonathan,

thank you for answer. You have right, that is good idea with making 
standalone (virtual) redirection server for all people. But here is 
another question: it is possible creates this redirection shares on that 
virtual server with the most simple path like \\virtual.filesrv\user ? 
Or i need to using something like this: \\virtual.filesrv\msdfs_share\user ?

You know, people are lazy and they will not be using longer path if the 
know simplest one to their homedirs (we are not using this samba server 
as domain controller (although it is so configured for this purpose) - 
so there are not folder redirection nor policy using).

thanks

michal

On 12. 1. 2012 10:45, Jonathan Buzzard wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2012-01-11 at 19:28 +0100, Michal Bruncko wrote:
>> Hello list,
>>
>> we have two samba servers on two localities with bigger distance between
>> them. On both localities there are organizational staff working. And I
>> am trying to configure homedirectories for all of staff in this way:
>> - all users will have same beginning part of URL path where is their
>> homedir located (i.e. \\files.example.com\loginname) for unification and
>> central acces
>> - but because the lower speed link between both localities there is need
>> to locate homedirs:
>>    -- for locality A - on server A on that locality
>>    -- for locality B - on server B on that locality
>>
>> fine, thats are requirements. So I have decided to use MSDFS in
>> combination with [homes] in this way:
>> - on server A (which will acts as "files.example.com") there will be
>> homedirs MSDFS links for users on locality B pointed to their real
>> homedirs on server B (with classic symlink syntax "user_on_locality_B"
>> ->  "msdfs:IP_of_server_B\user_on_locality_B" )
>> So if user Bob from locality B will access its homedir, it will be
>> transparently redirected from Server A to its homedir on closest server B.
>>
>
> I don't think that will work because a share must be all MSDFS. So the
> [homes] share on server A cannot serve up both home directory shares to
> local users and do MSDFS redirection for none local users at the same
> time.
>
> The best way I know of is for their to be a third server say
> homes.example.com that does MSDFS redirection for all users. It is not
> doing much so a light weight virtual machine will do the job. That does
> work and has been for a number of years now.
>
> JAB.
>