samba - Mar 2004 - Roaming profiles problems Samba 3.0.2a / Win XP Pro/Win2K

Hi guys,

I'm experiencing seemingly random problems using roaming profiles with
Samba 3.0.2 on Debian Woody and clients being Win XP Pro and Win2K (all
of them running the latest service packs and critical updates and so
forth).

Sometimes when one of the machines tires to login the server profile
can't be found. The error Windows comes up with is "Network name cannot
be found." and that's all. The event viewer shows no additional
information which name it's trying to access.

In trying to read up on this problem, these "network name not found"
errors indicate that there might be a problem with the share names in
the samba configuration file and actual files and directories on the
harddrive. However, wouldn't that imply this error will show up every
single time I try to logon?

8 out of 10 login attemps work fine, it just fails every now and then.
Sometimes logging out and immediately logging in fixes it. Sometimes it
requires a few attempts before it finally goes through.

This happens from every workstation, so it does not look like an
isolated issue with just one workstation.

Additionally, when the login goes fine without errors and the roaming
profile seems to be loading, it doesn't always seem to be rigth. Say I
made some changes on a machine called Eriond (different background
colour and created some desktop shortcuts), I log out of that machine
and it saves chagnes without errors. Logging on another machine called
Lorien does not always show these latest changes, but it does load some
kind of profile. WHen I log out of Lorien and back in on Eriond, the new
colours and such are gone because Lorien just wrote its version of the
profile to the server.

Does anybody know of a way how I can go about debugging this roaming
profile issue? I've see similar problems reported on this list but no
(working) answers, so I'm wondering if this is just one of those bugs
that eludes everybdoy. Especially seeing I can't reliably reproduce the
problem.

Thanks for any help and insights you guys may be able to share.

-- 
Gerard Beekmans

/* If Linux doesn't have the solution, you have the wrong problem */
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#
# Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux.
#
# $Id: smb.conf,v 1.2.4.6 2002/03/13 18:56:16 peloy Exp $
#
# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which 
# are not shown in this example
#
# Any line which starts with a ; (semi-colon) or a # (hash) 
# is a comment and is ignored. In this example we will use a #
# for commentary and a ; for parts of the config file that you
# may wish to enable
#
# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command
# "testparm" to check that you have not many any basic syntactic 
# errors. 
#

#======================= Global Settings ======================
[global]

# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace
   panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
	passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
	pam password change = no
	printing = cups
	winbind uid = 10000-20000
	syslog only = no
	dns proxy = no
	name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast
	template shell = /bin/bash
	socket options = TCP_NODELAY
	short preserve case = yes
	wins support = true
	max log size = 1000
	obey pam restrictions = yes
	passwd chat = *Enter\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\sUNIX\spassword:*
%n\n .
	preserve case = yes
	unix password sync = false
	server string = %h server (Samba %v)
	winbind gid = 10000-20000
	syslog = 0
	log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
	load printers = yes
	#default = homes

	netbios name = debian
	workgroup = profilestest
	os level = 64
	preferred master = yes
	domain master = yes
	local master = yes
	security = user
	encrypt passwords = true
	domain logons = yes
	logon path = \\%L\profiles\%U
	logon drive = U:
	logon home = \\%L\homes\%U
	add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -d /dev/null -g 105 -c 'Machine
account' -s /bin/false -M %u
	log level = 0

[profiles]
	path = /home/profiles
	browsable = no
	guest ok = no
	create mask = 0600
	directory mask = 0700
	profile acls = yes
	writeable = yes
	csc policy = disable

[netlogon]
	path = /home/netlogon
	read only = yes
	guest ok = yes
	browsable = yes

[homes]
	path = /home
	writable = yes
	browseable = no
	comment = Home Directories
	public = no
	create mask = 0700
	directory mask = 0700

[printers]
	path = /tmp
	comment = All Printers
	create mode = 0700
	printable = yes
	public = yes

[Public]
   comment = Public files area
   writable = yes
   locking = no
   path = /home/public
   public = yes

# The next two parameters show how to auto-mount a CD-ROM when the
#	cdrom share is accesed. For this to work /etc/fstab must contain
#	an entry like this:
#
#       /dev/scd0   /cdrom  iso9660 defaults,noauto,ro,user   0 0
#
# The CD-ROM gets unmounted automatically after the connection to the
#
# If you don't want to use auto-mounting/unmounting make sure the CD
#	is mounted on /cdrom
#
#   preexec = /bin/mount /cdrom
#   postexec = /bin/umount /cdrom