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Re: Windows Home Directories and PDC/member servers


On 28 Sep, 2004, at 02:49, John Gerth wrote:
An /etc/netlogon/login.bat , defined in the Login Script: field of Workgroup Manager mounts users' home directories: net use U: \\c5\%UserName% .

The devil may be in the details here so here are a few questions:
a) how did you disable roaming profiles? (Apple doesn't make this easy)
b) Is the PDC also a WINS server? Do the clients point at it for WINS?
c) Do you have several login.bat files?
The one you show would only ever reference a server named 'c5'

a) removed 'logon path = \\%N\profiles\%u' from /etc/smb.conf in the PDC
b) yes, the PDC is also a WINS server (Workgroup Master Browser and Domain Master Browser)
c) yes, one login script for each home directory server, each script mapping users to their home server

Students home directories are stored on four other servers (~1 GHz Power Mac G4s, >=1.5 GB RAM). Staff home directories are stored on three other Xserves which serve home directories stored on a >1 TB Xserve RAID array. All servers run 10.3.5, are 'Connected to a [Open] Directory System' and are Windows 'Domain Member[s]'.

Are all the home directory servers on the same nets?
Are any of them using multiple NICs?

Yes, all home directory servers, and the PDC, are in the 10.1.10/24 net. Students and faculty; however, may be logging-in from other class C sub nets (10.1.x/24). Ciscos are all configured with spanning-tree portfast enabled.
None of the servers, including the PDC, presently are configured for or make use of multiple NICs.

The connections pane in the Windows section of Server Admin will show an "unknown" connection for each user during these failures. Students get authenticated by the ODM/PDC, and students see a U: drive in Windows Explorer; however, students are denied access to U: , even if they type their username and password as Windows prompts for it (indicating a failure of the home directory server).

The "unknown" connection is an anonymous guest connection done before
authentication has occurred (Apple specifies that the guest account
be called "unknown").

We gathered that, for the user's name normally replaces "unknown" moments later, when login works as expected.

I am now trying to determine what happens between the hand-off to/from the home directory server, for that seems to be the point of failure. Has anyone any detailed knowledge of this process?
The "hand-off" is really just a separate share request which you're
generating out of the login.bat. It should be no different from
one entered via a commmandline.

If the students were authed by ODM/PDC then that should be accepted
by the Domain member servers without further prompting so I would
guess that something went wrong earlier with the auth. Did they
have you crank up the Samba log levels to get more detail? Do
the other Xserves show up in WGM's list of Windows Computers?

Apple never asked us to crank-up Samba log levels. Logging was set at 'high' at one point on all home directory servers, and 'low' on the PDC. Logging is now 'low' on all servers, because another tech here believes logging consumes too many resources and may contribute to the problem.

Apple did send us Data Capture (compiles logs & config files) to run. We have sent to Apple results from times when things were okay and times when things were beginning to fail. Apparently the data captured did not help them.

The other Xserves, for the most part, all appear in each others' SMB browse lists. One server may be missing from another's list, but there is no consistency. One thing to note, our PDC is the only server with 'Workgroup Master Browser' and 'Domain Master Browser' services enabled in SA. All home directory servers are configured to 'Register with WINS server: 10.1.10.21' (our ODM/PDC), and the ODM/PDC has 'Enable WINS server' selected.

If it will help, I will be happy to post smb.conf files from both our PDC and home directory servers.

Thank you for the response John. Even if you cannot help resolve the problem, you have provided some clarity; and it is good to know others are listening.
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References: 
 >Re: Windows Home Directories and PDC/member servers (From: Chris <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Windows Home Directories and PDC/member servers (From: email@hidden)
 >Re: Windows Home Directories and PDC/member servers (From: John Gerth <email@hidden>)



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