Recipe 23.16. Enabling Roaming Profiles
23.16.1 Problem
You move around a lot and
log in from different machines, and you would like some way of having
Samba present you with the same desktop environment.
You'd like to have all of your menus, shortcuts, and
pretty backgrounds in place, just as though you were chained to a
single PC all day.
23.16.2 Solution
Configure roaming profiles in smb.conf. Add
these lines to the global section:
logon home = \\%L\%U\.profiles
logon path = \\%L\profiles\%U
Next, create a profiles share:
[profiles]
path = /var/profiles
writeable = yes
browseable = no
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700
Make sure that /var/profiles, or whatever
directory you want to use, exists and has these permissions:
# mkdir -m 1757 /var/profiles
Save your changes, and restart Samba. That's all it
takes—now you will be greeted by your familiar desktop
environment no matter where you log in.
23.16.3 Discussion
logon home is for Windows 95/98/ME.
logon path applies to Windows NT/2000/XP. The
variable-substitution macros automatically pick up your domain and
username, so this is a nice generic configuration you can use
anywhere.
The create mask and directory
mask permissions ensure that only file owners will be able
to read or write to their own profiles.
Profiles are enabled by default in Windows NT/2000/XP. To enable them
in Windows 95/98/ME, go to Control Panel  Passwords
User Profiles tab. Check "Users
can customize their preferences and desktop
settings."
Enabling roaming profiles can cause problems. Profiles do not work
consistently between the different versions of Windows, so anyone who
logs in from different Windows systems will probably see some odd
behavior. For example, changes made to the Start menu or desktop
shortcuts might not appear the same from every machine used to log
in. Also, if users accumulate a lot of files on their desktops,
they'll clog the network and take up a lot of space
on the Samba server.
Having roaming profiles is nice, but not essential;
they're just cosmetic. If they are more trouble than
they're worth, you may disable them in good
conscience.
23.16.4 See Also
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