• Mac OS X/Linux default home directory
  
  • For unix users the default home directories are found in /etc/skel. When you are ready to make a default user directory, simply copy over /etc/skel to /home/username and change all ownership permissions to match.
    
    
  • However, we don't just have normal *nix users, we also have Mac OS X users. Mac OS X is a *nix system, so the same theory works, but it's a little different. Mac OS X stores the equivelant of /etc/skel in /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj.
    
    
  • What we did for our system is to get one Mac system set up EXACTLY like we wanted them all to be by default. We deleted the Movies, Pictures, and Music folders (no need for any of those). We changed Sites to public_html to work with our webserver. We left Desktop, Documents, and Library the same. We then got the system set up how we wanted the default to look, setting the desktop and setting up the dock how we wanted it, including placing apps, folder, and shortcuts how we wanted. Then, we copied over that users home directory, found at /Users/user_name into our /etc/skel.mac on our linux server. That way, every time we create a new Linux user, we then copy over the skel.mac directory to get the Mac OS X files along with the default Linux files. It all works great.
    
    
  • On the Mac OS X side of things, there is really only one directory that could get messed up and cause problems for the user, and that is the Library folder. This is where all settings are stored. If one users ever messed things up too badly, all you need to do is replace their Library folder with the default one we made in /etc/skel.
    
    
• Windows profile
  • For the windows profiles we simply use default windows profiles. There is a way to specify a custom profile as the default, but when we tried it it messed up the system, so we just use the default windows profile to start each user.
  
  
  • After you have added the user, and added their home directory, make an empty folder located on the SAMBA server at /usr/local/var/samba/profiles/username or where ever your samba sytem stores the user profiles.
  
  
  • You don't have to put anything in that folder. The first time the user logs on to a windows machine, the SAMBA server will create a default profile there for that user. Then, any personal settings the person makes will from that point on be stored in that profile folder.
  
  
  • Also, keep in mind that on a Windows system, the desktop for the user is part of the profile, so any items the user keeps on their desktop get copied to this folder. Every time the user logs in our out the ENTIRE profile gets copied to the local machine. This creates a LOT of network traffic, so we suggest telling users to NOT store files on the desktop.
  
  
  • If the windows user profile ever gets corrupted, simply delete everything in the directory for the profile for that user on the SAMBA server, and the next time they log in it will create a new default profile. Keep in mind they will loose all custom settigns, as well as any files that are on the desktop.

Testing:
After you have finished the server steps, you want to make sure you have a Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows client to setup as test machines. Follow the instructions for each of those on their appropriate pages, and then test the system on each platform.

On Linux, the user should be able to login, and their home directory should be mounted at /home/user_name. For the Mac clients, they should be able to login, and their home directory should be mounted at /home/user_name. For the windows clients, they should be able to login, have their home directory mounted as the U: drive and have their own profile loaded (to store personal settings).

If all of the following things seem to be working correctly then we are ready to add our final user data. I strongly urge you to VERY completely test the whole system, as it is much easier to fix problems before you have a heavy user load, and also you don't run the risk of having to go in and change info in every user's LDAP file, or recreate them all. Once you are posative your done, then we can add users.

As stated in the end of the LDAP setup section, use the samba_user.ldif file (which you must rename to samba_user.ldfi from .txt) This file is merely a sample, and you will have to custome configure it to work for your system, changing the dn (distinguised name) secion, username, uid numbers, smb mounts and other information.

You must create a separate ldif file for each user, and import that info ldap. Then set the ldap password, then set the SAMBA password (using smbpasswd 'username' 'password'. Then you must copy over the home directory (from /etc/skel and the mac home directory at /etc/skel.mac to the nfs server's /home/username and chown it to the new LDAP user you just added. Then you must a directory to store the windows profile information. Then test the user. If it works, your good to go.

You most likely want to find a way to write some scripts to automate the user adding process. It is WAY to tedious to do all of this by hand. We have some scripts we use to automate the whole process, and it makes it VERY simple. However we are in the process of re-writing them, so hopefully we can post the final scripts here for you to use as a sample soon.