[K12OSN] Re: An idea regarding SME server and authentication

[John Baillie]

David Trask Wrote:

I have an idea...wanted to bounce it off you all.  What if....  

One of the main issues with using SME server as a central point of
authentication and home dirs is that the directory structure of "home" on
SME is  /home/e-smith/files/users/"username"/home   What if we created
symlinks in /home to all the users home dirs.....example the link for
/home/jsmith would point to /home/e-smith/users/jsmith/home   then we
could export and thus mount /home....and the symlinks "might" (haven't
tried it yet) point to the actual home dir?  Then we could auth via SMB
using authconfig and mount home dirs that are export via NFS.  Thoughts? 
Could this work or am I crazy?

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Coordinator
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask vcs u52 k12 me us
(207)923-3100



Hello David,

Instead of an answer I've Got a few questions for you.

Why is the directory structure an issue? 
How are you integrating your Samba-LDAP with SME?
Why are you using SME as your /home file server?

The only reason I ask is I am getting ready to make some big changes
next week and am still at a point where could make some adjustments.

As per your suggestion about a year and a half ago I installed SME 
but only use it with Dan's Guardian along with the DG dungog add-in. 

Using your LDAP how-to and a couple of others too as references I've
decided to implement that also. 

My plan is share /home on a fc3 based samba-ldap with all users /home being on
that server. I hope to add an ldap address book and authenticate moodle and 
phpGroupWare against it also. Have you worked with that end of LDAP?

One thing I'm not quite sure how to set up is the staff's home directories.
As it is now the staff home directories are on an NT server. Student home
directories are on one of the k12 servers. k12server/home is owned by the
the teachers group and all teachers have complete access to all student
directories. I was thinking of making a separate dir named /staffhome in order
to keep things separated. Not sure that is the best way to go but I know that
the teachers would feel better if their "home folders" were not mixed in with
the students. That is what they are use to. If I keep it separated they will
not be aware that a change has taken place. But if they come back after Christmas 
break and their "home folders" are mixed in with the students they will want to know
why.

Thanks for any input and have a great holiday.

John