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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

  • smb.conf(5)

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