Home Windows network at present dual booting Windows NTFS / kubuntu 5.10

I would like to put all my data (and for three other users) on a new server running only kubuntu.

Then I would like to be able to log on from any of the four client machines and access the data / profiles. I think if this is easy to set up Windows will be retired at that point... but there is always samba.

I would like each user to keep totally confidental access to their own data but share common application packages.

What tools do I use to set this up?

this sounds like a job for:

ssh

I believe ssh to be extremely easy to set up and configure, so I won't go into any detail here, but what you can easily do is set up each user (authentication may be as simple or as complex as you like), and grant each user access only to whatever files you decide.

There's tons of ssh advice here at LQ, but by all means, we can continue in this thread if the need arises.

cheers,

ssh?

I am not sure I understand.

ssh is a way of securely logging into a server? I do not know ssh at all. Would this mean then running all applications from the server rather than the local client? If that is the case it would make the network traffic quite interesting...

Is NFS of no value?

Best wishes..

doh!

Indeed, I don't know what I was thinking in my initial reply. Holy-off-on-a-tangent, Batman.

Er, I'm a child of the 60's, will that suffice?

I could elaborate on the ssh and tell you it would work with sshfs, but....

NFS is a route to go, as long as you can find a Windows NFS client. Microsoft bundled one in its SFU package, but has discontinued support. It is still available for download, however you have to fill out a form. Which means you have to go through all that bother of making up fake stuff all over again.

I've checked all over for GPL Windows NFS clients without success, though sourceforge has a Windows NFS server, which one might 'think' would include a client, though a cursory glance didn't indicate one.

And, as you said in the initial post, there is always samba.

cheers,

Well let us forget about Windows..... and focus on the problem. You know Linux. I know Windows. My thinking is really poor since I am thinking Windows. Please guide me.

I have not yet got NFS to work. Apparently it is easy. I think it is a pig.

However, let me ask a concern.

With NFS I understand that you map a client IP to an exported directory on the server. I understand that the client IP can map to only one directory irrespective of the user who logs in. So far so good.

But if you have a number of users who sit at a pc and use their user name to log in, they still get the common exported directory on the server. So the data of all users in that directory / sub directory can be seen.

How do you set the client or server up so that when a named user logs in he only sees his own data files?

I guess this is not hard. But if you do not know how ... it is difficult to know where to look ..

To be honest, I've only ever used samba for linux-to-windows networking, and even for a linux-to-linux setup I have involving a thinclient.

However, I've always had NFS running 'just in case', and in the last couple of days I've been hacking away at it to see what's up.

So, I'm no expert, but what I have deduced, thus far, is that whilst you would export an NFS share to a particular IP, the normal Linux permissions still apply. So, if user 'Bob' is logged in on your Windows PC, and mounts the NFS share, he may only 'see' and use what he is entitled to see and use. So, if his directory on the NFS share is /home/Bob, and permissions on that directory are 0700, then only Bob can rwx there.

Hope I'm right, and hope this helps....


cheers,

Many thanks for your input.

I think I still do not know if NFS is the right solution since it seems to me that if there are multiple users on one machine, the IP detected is going to be the same and the full data directory is therefore going to be presented showing all users all data.

Not quite what I want .... but perhaps I do not quite understand