Roaming home directories?
 

Multi server environment, Netapp filers, Linux and Windows desktops, and "Centrify" LDAP authentication joined into Active Directory

Server platform is SLES 10/SLES11 and Desktops are OpenSUSE, SLED, Ubuntu, Windows 2000, and even some Macs here or there.


What I would like to be able to do, is create a file share on the Netapp filer, export it via CIFS, and then mount this share as /home on a user's Linux workstation, and as "My Documents" or whatever on Windows.

I have the pretty much statically figured out on Linux, and dynamically figured out on Windows. Windows profiles will allow this share to be mapped at login, on any Windows system the user logs into.

On Linux the CIFS mount options still require the user to either have a credentials file, or actively type in his password at mount.

What I would like to do is...

1. Have pam configured to authenticate the mount request, so no password is required beyond the initial login.

2. And this is the part that I am not sure can be done... have this occur as a /home/username mapping on any Linux server the person may login to. So if they are SSH'ing around into different boxes, /home/username always points to the same share on the Netapp.

If anyone has any experience setting up "roaming home directories" in Linux, I'd love to here how you did it.

Thanks,

ATDlinux

OpenAFS is a distributed file system that I administered for many years. It will provide roaming home dirs, with authentication, security, and scalability. I had it set up to use Kerberos5 and Ldap directory services. You might be interested in it. http://www.openafs.org/main.html

I haven't done it, but I think the Samba configuration may be able to do that for you, alternatively you could place a login script on the server for them that mounts it to /home/user/MyDocuments.