Hai guys! Long time no see, all well?

Got a bit of a bugger here. Three systems running Vista Business edition, central server running Ubuntu server (Could yet be Fedora, not too fussed) running Samba. No Windows Server, no Active Directory.

And I've no idea what to do. Vista keeps whinging about not being able to find an Active Directory server. So how best to implement roaming profiles using nothing but an OSS server? o.0

Passwords aren't an issue as such; they're rarely changed. I just can't get the bastard working. >.<

Thanks guys <3

Roaming profiles require a Domain and PDC. It is doable with Linux and Samba, but, to be honest, it is a lot cheaper and easier to do it with a Windows Server...

Is it really just 3 machines? If so, you will save time and money (your time configuring the machines and not doing your "normal" work is money to the business), by running Windows SBS on the server would it will make configuration a lot easier.

The more complex way is to set up the Samba server to run as a PDC and set up the LDAP directory services. The O'Reilly Samba book is a great introduction, but setting up a domain network with Linux and Samba is a large topic, which isn't fully covered in the book (it only has about 100 pages on setting up a Samba PDC).

If you go with the Windows SBS solution, you can also set it up to use WSUS (update server), which means all patches for the clients are downloaded onto your server, you can then specify which patches are authorised for release, keep an eye on the state of each machine etc. and all of the patches are downloaded only once - an important bandwidth saving for a small business.

Also configure the machines to redirect the personal folders to map to the users network home directory (with offline caching), this will speed up the login process, otherwise everything under the User's folder on the PC will be synched to the server each time they log on or off.

Also, when using Samba, it creates a new directory path for each machine the user logs onto. You will need to rebuild those for the other two machines to hard links (I think) to the path for the primary machine they use, in order to use roaming profiles, otherwise they will have different Documents etc. directories on each machine!

Hmm that sounds fun Dave. I know what I would do if it was me, I'd take your advice and go the SBS route.

Hmm, I'll give Windows SBS an eyeballing over, although I don't see how it would be cheaper. Cheers all the same

Dave: I've got the samba server set up as a PDC with suitable authentication, what is flummoxing me is Vista complaining about Active Directory when i attempt to join the domain. I've tried taking a shortcut and manually specifying the location of the profile and home folders, but in that case it just logs me on as a temporary profile :-/

Cheers,

Weasel

Have you correctly set up the LDAP entries?

Windows SBS = cheaper because you don't have to waste hours running round in circles trying to get Samba and LDAP set up correctly. Yes, Linux is free or relatively cheap, depending on your annual support agreement, but if you have to spend hours and hours configuring the PDC role and setting up the LDAP correctly, then it will cost your employer/company more money through lost productivity, because you are spending time doing unnecessary steps.

If I use Windows workstations, then I'll have at least a Windows Server as the PDC, the rest of the servers can be Linux, it is relatively easy to add them to the domain, but to get roaming profiles, LDAP etc. set up correctly on the Samba server is a lot harder and takes a lot more time than using a Windows Server as the PDC.

If the workstations are OS X or Linux/UNIX, then I'd have no problems going 100% Linux/UNIX on the server side.

Domain = Active Directory (of difficult LDAP configs)

samba's just for file sharing IIRC

Spend the £300 on sbs

Samba has come a long way since it was "just" file sharing.

It has been doing domains for over half a decade, but AD requires a lot of laborious work setting up LDAP.

Oops, I stand corrected, Samba 3.n can be a member of an ActiveDirectory domain, according to the RedHat documentation, but it isn't possible to make it the PDC.

I'll have lunch and check LDAP is set up right, that might be it.

Cheers again guys.

I'd give up CMOT. Samba don't provide an LDAP schema for ActiveDirectory and it will take you months to program it properly yourself.

The new version of Clarckconnect supports roaming profiles in samba
http://www.clarkconnect.com/developer/betas/5.0.php

There is a dirt cheap enterprise edition, and a free community edition
http://www.clarkconnect.com/info/compare.php
I couldn't say for sure if the profile support is included in the community edition, but I'd say it's worth a look.

I pretty much have. I spent most of yesterday kicking about with OpenLDAP and progress made consists purely of not being able to see my linux boxes by hostname from anything other than windows. <JamesMay> Cock. </JamesMay>

It would have been nice to get it going as it give me a bit of experience and looks good on a CV. But life's too short.

Waffle: Cheers, I'll check it out, see if I can get anywhere.