Likewise Open and Local Accounts
 

I have been working off and on this project at work for some time now. I am a linux newbie, I learned a ton though the past few months but still stumbling on some basics.

What I have here at work are several Redhat Servers that run a combat simulation program. The server launches war games to other Redhat terminals. No login is required on the clients even though you can if you want to.

The clients have Redhat installed on them and the setup process has me run a script from the server that installs the files needed and makes all the required network changes.

The software runs off the server and the clients home directories are mounted vis NFS on the server.

My requirement is to get these machines off local authentication to centralized authentication to Windows Active Directory.

One of our guys suggested Likewise Open and I read the admin guide and installed the software with no issues. I can log in fine with my Windows credentials.

My dillema is this. I am a bit confused on the local accounts this software creates. When you run the server setup it creates local accounts for the clients it hosts the games for. The setup script also makes all the profile changes needed, creates home directories, shortcuts on the toolbars for the software, wallpaper etc.

I need to move them to Windows authenticated accounts but still have them "map" if that is the correct term to these local accounts.

I was not entirely sure how the local accounts work. I was making the initial mistake by editing the accounts with moduser thinking if I just create an account with the same name it would do the rest if I changed the logon to the local account home directory.

Then I tried changing UID to match.

Then I tried editing the Likewise registry to map the users to the local home directory. Which come to find out is the local machine and not the server.

I also modified the home directory creation path via Likewise registry with no luck but that was due to me modifying the local path via Likewise vs the server itself.

So what I am essentially trying to do is this:

1. Have a Windows authenticated account log in.

2. Windows account logs in and goes to a local account home directory.

3. Windows account "inherits" if that is the correct word all the settings from that local profile (theme, desktop, shortcuts, etc)

Made some progress today, guess I needed to take a break. What I know now is Likewise AD accounts use the

naming convention. I am trying to figure out if the Redhat Server that hosts the application also needs Likewise installed to recognize the different user naming convention? I wanted to test the client first before I installed it on the server.