[UniMacTech] OSX Server 10.5 and roaming Windows Profiles

[Declan McQuay]

James,

Sorry, I forgot to reply to this list.

You are correct, symlinks are the answer for this issue. I have done a 
bit of testing with existing profile data and different server updates, 
and symlinks have solved the issue.

I don't know why you need to go to all that effort just to get profiles 
working, and why editing the smb.conf causes such damage, but at least 
it works now with the symlink.

Thank you for the reply.

I'll also CC'd this to the AUC list.

- Declan

James Boorman wrote:
> Hi Declan,
>
> This may be a silly suggestion, so forgive me, but have you tried 
> symlinks instead of aliases for the redirection of your profiles ? 
> What kind of permissions problems are you getting ?
>
> When you get the domain not recognised, server does not exist, do you 
> get anything in the logs ?
>
> Assuming all windows machines have the PDC set in WINS.
>
> Would be interested to hear how you get on. We currently use roaming 
> profiles under 10.4.11 and given a number of issues with AFP with 
> 10.5.6, we still haven't jumped to Leopard Server.
>
> Regards
>
> James
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> From: Declan McQuay <declan.mcquay at sci.monash.edu.au>
>>> Date: 16 February 2009 9:13:59 AM
>>> To: University Macintosh Technical Mailing List <unimactech at auc.edu.au>
>>> Subject: [UniMacTech] OSX Server 10.5 and roaming Windows Profiles
>>> Reply-To: University Macintosh Technical Mailing List 
>>> <unimactech at auc.edu.au>
>>>
>>> copy/paste from my email on the Mac server list, want to see if 
>>> anyone has a suggestion/tip/solution here:
>>>
>>> Hey,
>>>
>>> Just been caught out big time when moving from our current 10.4.11 
>>> Server to 10.5.6 Server (different hardware, so easy to roll back to 
>>> Tiger). Everything was going well till I came across our Windows 
>>> roaming profile volume (which is stored on the Xserve RAID).
>>>
>>> With OSX Server 10.3 and 10.4, in smb.conf there was a path under 
>>> [profiles] which pointed to that volume for (/Volume/Profiles) and 
>>> worked well in most cases with the 250 so users, a third of them 
>>> being Windows users.
>>>
>>> However during my testing of 10.5 I must have missed the way OSX 
>>> 10.5 deals with Windows profiles. The smb.conf kept in /etc is 
>>> nothing like what I have seen before, and the smb.conf under /var/db 
>>> is close to what I used to deal with under 10.3 and 10.4. The 
>>> /var/db smb.conf keeps the Windows profiles under /Users/Profiles.
>>>
>>> I have tried tricks like changing the path in the /var/db/smb.conf, 
>>> which totally breaks the Windows/SMB system. I tried adding profile 
>>> path information in the /etc/smb.conf, but that did nothing.
>>> I tried being tricky and making the Profiles folder under Users an 
>>> alias to the /Volumes/Profiles volume, but all that does is come up 
>>> with a heap of permissions issues.
>>>
>>> I've since rolled back to 10.4.11, which allows users to have the 
>>> roaming profiles and allows me to change smb.conf without causing 
>>> trouble.
>>>
>>> Everything else seems to work, like my login scripts for the Windows 
>>> machines, and home directories mount properly, it is just the 
>>> roaming profiles that is stopped things. I don't really want to move 
>>> the Windows users to local profiles, since there are a few of them 
>>> who move around PCs, and the pain of having to recreate profiles and 
>>> preferences, it can be annoying. How come I can't easily change the 
>>> path? Why just changing a path cause the SMB system in 10.5 die?
>>>
>>> If someone can help or provide some tips it will be greatly 
>>> apprieciated.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Declan
>>>
>>> note: What I mean by SMB dying, is that on the XP machines after 
>>> modifying /var/db/smb.conf either    
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Declan McQuay
>>> Desktop Support Officer
>>> Faculty of Science Monash University
>>> Maths IT Help Webpage:
>>> http://wiki.med.monash.edu.au/MathematicalSciences/MathsITGuide
>>> For all IT issues please use Jobdesk:
>>> http://jobdesk.med.monash.edu.au/login/index.cfm?jobdesk_id=9
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> unimactech mailing list
>>> unimactech at auc.edu.au
>>> http://www.auc.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/unimactech
>>
>> James Boorman
>> I.T. Manager
>> Australian Institute of Family Studies
>> Level 20
>> 485 La Trobe Street
>> Melbourne Victoria 3000
>> Australia
>>
>> Direct dial: +61 3 9214 7828
>> Fax:     +61 3 9214 7839
>> E-mail: James.Boorman at aifs.gov.au
>> Web: http://www.aifs.gov.au
>>
>
> James Boorman
> I.T. Manager
> Australian Institute of Family Studies
> Level 20
> 485 La Trobe Street
> Melbourne Victoria 3000
> Australia
>
> Direct dial: +61 3 9214 7828
> Fax:     +61 3 9214 7839
> E-mail: James.Boorman at aifs.gov.au
> Web: http://www.aifs.gov.au
>


-- 
Declan McQuay
Desktop Support Officer
Faculty of Science Monash University
Maths IT Help Webpage:
http://wiki.med.monash.edu.au/MathematicalSciences/MathsITGuide
For all IT issues please use Jobdesk:
http://jobdesk.med.monash.edu.au/login/index.cfm?jobdesk_id=9