Hello All,
I am fairly new to linux but i'm working on a home networking project. I have one machine configured as a server running fedora 4 and 2 boxes dual booting windows xp and fedora/susse.

I have managed to get Samba working so I can share files between my server and the windows boxes. Now I want to co-ordernate NIS as an authentication platform and Samba so that when a user logs in they have access to their home store on the server - creating a portable desktop.

NIS seems to be configured ok because I can log into linux on my client machines in command mode however I am having difficulty mapping the home drives (stored in /home/server1/username) to the client machines so x sessions fail instantly.

Any advice? I am also trying to get Windows to use NIS as its authentication method via pGina but this doesnt appear to be working, if anyone can suggest what to check i'd be very grateful!

well for starters, windows can not use NIS as an authentication method, windows boxes can only use domain controllers. but if your reall lookingy for a way to sync everything together, you could try and run samba & OpenLDAP as a primary domain controller, with openldap as the user database all the passwords will be stored in openldap. this way you can get your windows boxes to authenticate with samba/ldap and your linux boxes to authenticate with ldap.

on my website listed below there is a link to a script page that will setup both openldap and samba as a PDC, there is also a few how-to's for openldap and a few how-to's for samba, there should be all the information you need listed there.

Thanks for your advice - much appreciated. I will have a look at your website.

ps, although windows boxes cant authenticate with nis natively, I was using a tool called pGina which overides the native windows authentication and speaks to nis servers. Unfortunatly I havent been able to get this working properly but your method is better anyway so I will do it that way

Once again - I do appreciate your help!