Help Please!!

I've set up an old Netgear ND508 as a file server for a peer to peer network of 20 PCs in the school where I teach. It is almost ideal for the job because it is simple to administer and allows shares to be password protected when all the children are logged on using the same username - giving the children their own secure folder. However it is slow!!! It cannot cope with more than few children trying to access it at once. I've added a new Symphony DS101 NAS but to get this to password protect folders, all the children would have to have a separate username.

I'd like to either:

upgrade the ND508's perfomance to enable 20 concurrent users (the small disk size is not a problem)

or

build a simple file server (out of an old PC) using a similar OS to the ND508 that would allow me to make passwords for shares independent of users. I've looked at NASLite which seems good but doesn't allow any passwords.

Any suggestions please about which way I should go and how to go about it?

Thanks very much!

hi

we have in our student residence a file server running Fedora Core. It is very simple to configure using samba, there you can setup as many users as you like... you can use ip-authentification as well

for the configuration of samba, you can use swat, which is a web-based-config-tool running on the samba-server.

you could use only one share, and there every user has a folder, which only they can acces (works only if diferent usernames). the other posibility is to make one share named homes, then every user is able to acces to his home directory on the sambaserver... this is a very good feature, because you don't need to make a lot of shares for every child.

if you need more help, i could send you our smb.config.

have a while!


leg

Thanks.
Would the last suggestion mean that the children could log onto the workstations all using the same username ("pupil") but then be asked for a password to access their own folder?

if you like, they can use the same login name, but i don't think this is a good option, because all people whould be able to delete the files from the others (since they are all the same user, an a user can delete his files!)


if every child has his own login, he could log in in the server using this, and keep his files secure (not that a child deletes some data from other users). with a simple script you can add keep the config of the samba-server up 2 date.

if you go to www.samba.org, you'll find a lot of information about samba, with enxamples and howto's. tell me if i can help you, too

bye