Stuart King's picture

Hi All

I have my PDC setup in VMWare which works great and have also managed to join an XP client to the PDC

My problem is that for the life of me I cannot get any other users to logon - Only the default administrator account.

I have created some new users but they just don't show up on the list of Samba users even though I'm sure I have set them as smbusers.

I realise from Codehead's quick start guide that there are some "gotchas" so is there a step by step guide for successfully adding users so that they can logon via an XP machine?

Info greatly appreciated

Regards

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Jeremy Davis's picture

and thus should automatically be available as domain users, but perhaps double check that. If you use the Webmin interface there is a "Sync Linux users & Samba users" button so you could press that to make sure.

I haven't used the PDC (only the Fileserver) so I'm not sure about logging in and what "gotchas" there may be. The only one I have come across is making sure that both the Linux (file) permissions and Samba (share) permissions are both set for files that are shared.

Stuart King's picture

Hi Buddy

OK I navigated to: Servers > Samba Windows File Sharing

Then went to: Configure automatic Unix and Samba user sync

In there I checked: Add a Samba user when a Unix user is added

Recreated a new user called Windows Test and this user now shows up in the list of Samba users automatically.

So far so good!

Now on the XP client, I can login to the Domain as Windows Test but I get a warning message regarding roaming profiles and that the XP client is going to use a local profile instead.

Any ideas?

Thanks again

Jeremy Davis's picture

check that you have access to the server. If not, troubleshoot that making sure you have file permissions (using Linux user) set correctly, as well as share permissions (Samba user). The roaming data should be stored in your home directory (default is /home/<username> on the PDC) so you will need to have full access to that folder.

If you do have access, then try to sync your profile with the server. Also try loggining in and out a few times (I recall even on a Windows only 2k3 domain there were times that you have to log in and out twice to see the result of some changes).

Perhaps that is normal behaviour for the first log in? There would be no Windows user data on the server until you log in and sync the XP data to the server?

Stuart King's picture

Hi There

Yes I can access the server via the XP client and can navigate to:

My Network Places > Entire Network > MS Windows Network > Domain > PDC and all relevant shares / folders are there.

Problem is that there is NO folder for Windows Test under:

PDC\profiles

The administrator one is present though!

Regards

Codehead's picture

D'oh!


Stuart King's picture

Hi All

I got it working!

Not sure if its the correct way but here's what I did:

Navigated to File Manager then to: /srv/storage/profiles

Created a directory for Windows Test (user was already created)

Change the ownership to windows test and group name to smbusers via info button

Now it works!

A fully functioning Linux server for Windows clients - Brilliant

Goodbye CALs

Excellent

Jeremy Davis's picture

In Webmin (on your PDC appliance), go to System>>Users & Groups find your user, click it. Then scroll down to "group membership", the primary group will probably be "users", that's fine but under secondary groups add "smbusers" and save.

I no longer get the error message, hopefully that works for you too.

[edit] looks like you got it working in the meantime while I was testing! Glad its all sorted. I just added a quick note on the wiki entry.

Stuart King's picture

Hi Buddy

Yes its all working now, even redirected the My Documents folder on XP client and works perfect.

This is really good news for people / organisations who cannot afford the expense of Windows Server 2003 / 2008 / SBS etc and then have the further expense of CALs.

I'm going to deploy this in a "live" environment where security etc isnt a concern and see how it goes.

But so far I cannot see any problems.

Maybe there should be some clarification between this and full Windows PDC.

Regards

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