I set up a Samba Domain Controller with LDAP Authentification. The home -directorys of the Linux clients are Samba - Shares mounted with pam_mount. Anything works perfect except the labtop-users who cannot login when they are offline (first problem LDAP, second problem home directory). Is there any possible way to
1) manage a offline user - authentification wit LDAP
2) have a offline replica of the home directory mount (like the offline folders in ms-windows perhaps with rsync)

thanks for any hint to solve this problem and sorry for my 10 o clock night english, Stephan Geberl

I'm haveing this same problem, Any feed back would be nice.

Also, If this is not possable with samba, Is it possable with NFS or another technology?

Windows does this by copying the relevant files on logon and then copying them back on logoff.

home directory:
This functionality can easily be achived by mounting the home directory to a different location and making bash scripts that
on logon:
copies the configuration files and any other files essential for your operations to a home area on the laptop.

on logoff:
coping them back.

Depending on the environment you are using, it is very likely you can have these called automatically.


for LDAP:
There are tools available that can generate local logins from an LDAP database. I've seen these about but haven't tried any yet. Alternatively, you could create a local login users (you can set up a computer to fall back to try local logins when ever an LDAP user doesn't exist).


There are probably tools already available to help with this. I'm very new to LDAP, so there are probably much better ways of achieving it.


Sorry I can't be more specific. The solution will vary heaps depending on you environment.

- Kevin