I'm losing myself in thought about how to do this one.

The Scenario is that there will be Three Ubuntu Ltsp Servers with clients behind each (of course). Each server will have indentical logins (so that no matter what area someone goes to they can still login with their username and password. However I'm unsure how to link each server's users together so that their documents remain the same.

I though about a freenas server that could be used to store each user's
"home folder".(add three nic's to the freenas server).

Is there an easier way?

the easiest way that i can think of is /home directories stored on a suitably large NFS server, which is mounted from each LTSP server in order to serve users home directories. I'm wondering how you are proposing keeping all user auth data in order, are you gonna use a LDAP server or something similar? It is the easiest way.

In my experience, the trick to setting up LTSP servers is to think of the LTSP servers as clients on both the LDAP directory server and NFS file server(s). The thin clients are getting 'everything' from the LTSP servers, so are dumb terminals.

Hope that makes sense!

I'll do some research on "LDAP" and how to link it. Thanks for the heads up. Now i know what I'm sort of looking for.

At the moment i have a testing ltsp server that boots clients and serves them the internet etc fine. However I can't seem to find a way to change their "home folder" from being on the server to my freenas server (for a testing enviroment)

well, currently i'm guessing that the home folders are under /home in some shape or form? All you need to do is specify the users home directory on your freenas server, provided you have mounted the freenas server on your LTSP server filesystem.

So it goes like this:
and then your current users will be able to recreate new home directories, and as you add new users, their home directories will automatically be on the freenas server. I'm not familiar with freenas, but i presume it's linux/unix/bsd, so you will have conventional POSIX file permissions, and you are exporting some part of the filesystem via NFS.

BTW, sorry for not replying, earlier, seems my 'new posts' are not getting updated properly!

Also, if the above works well for you, all you need to do to make it permanent is edit the /etc/fstab file on the LTSP server to automate the mount command.

ah thanks!
i'll give that a go soon. You guys are awesome

You could also have 3 home directories. Let's say /home1, /home2, /home3. On LTSP server one, /home1 is local, but on servers two and three it is an NFS mount. Likewise, on server 2, /home2 is local but /home1 and /home3 are mounts. User1 then has an entry in /etc/passwd with /home1/user1 as his home directory. User6 has /home2/user6. If the regular users' /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow file entries are the same for each LTSP server, you don't need to configure LDAP. The deciding factor may be on the number of users. The more users, the better LDAP looks.

Ok that would help too.

I'm using freenas because it's easy to use (it is BSD based, and i can access it from anywhere),
There is an option to setup a "nfs server". Should i investigate that?

Here's a picture -- http://img90.imageshack.us/i/71168564.jpg/ --

reply to jschiwal: I wouldn't recommend this since it will confuse things down the line, and definitely will cause hassle because one machine will become a /home repository. Also makes things a pain to backup and restore.

To Silver565: Yes, but I recommend reading some info on NFS first!

Ok Cool. I'll do some googling on NFS.
Mounting a freenas drive via smb:// didn't work. So Nfs will be the way to go.

I'm trying to follow this tutorial however i cannot seem to get it to work.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/nfs-server...in-ubuntu.html

Am i on the right track with the "mounting manually" section?

Here's a good HOWTO explanation of NFS http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...ccess_with_NFS

LDAP: http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...DAP_and_RADIUS

it's an ok tutorial, but basically it's the steps to get it working. I would suggest something a little more indepth. The problem with NFS is securing it, because basically all NFS exports are visible to all clients on the network, someone just has to emulate root in order to get full access, unless you set it up correctly. This: http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2006/10/...buntu-606-610/ is not bad, not overly complex, but explains fairly neatly some of the options you may require.

Thanks, I'll give that a go