Hey all. I'd like to use my linux system as a NIS server of some kind (or maybe there is another solution) for my various windows clients. I'd like them to all import their home directories from the server so if they log into a different windows system their data is still there.

I figure a centralized home dir server would allow me to do this so was wondering if anyone had any idea as to how i could accomplish this.

Thanks.

Well that'd be samba, not NIS. You could implement a full PDC with samba for centralized user accounts and dirs but you would not necessarily need the user accounts side, as long as you can still authenticate directly for the drive at a simpler level.

Nis is for linux, you need to look at samba, there are many ways of accomplishing what you need, but the setup is quite hard for a beginner.

There are plenty of howtos out there, just search for "samba howto" in google.

I would create a pdc, do you have windows xp/vista home there? coz then that sucks!

However, network home drives suck for intensive gaming ....

So using Samba I can not only export stuff to windows machines (which is what I usually use it for) but I can make windows client log into it and get their home dir populated from the samba server? If thats the case that is what I need.

And yes gaming on such a system would suck but my windows clients are essentially just thinclients. They browse...they create/edit documents and occasionally play mp3s.

The primary reason I want to centralize the users is because they each have a lot of documents and when a system is moved/broken/etc they lose their files and I end up having to manually copy them from drive to drive over and over. Its a real pain.

So does everyone here suggest Samba to be my solution?

Samba used to be just windows shares, but has long been a suite of tools to replicate all that funky windows domain stuff, it can get pretty complex if you're new to it, and also as there are many ways to do what you want, varying in end user experience and complexity, it can be hard to really know what pieces you really want. the "best" solution would be a full blown domain controller... but YMMV.