samba - Nov 2022 - several offices: home dirs, local resources, ...

18.11.2022 02:25, Norbert Hanke via samba wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Location-specific DFS might help you: an UNC path looks the same across
> all offices from the Windows client side, but it is resolves specific
> for the office it is being accessed from.
> 
> The concept is explained in Microsoft terms here:
>
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/dfs-namespaces/dfs-overview
> .
> 
> Concluding from a different mail thread, you are working on AD sites
> reflecting different offices. Once you have that working - site-specific
> AD-DCs in the various offices of your company, it will not be a big step
> to get site-specific "Folder Targets" (in Microsoft terms)
implemented.
> E.g. \\your.domain.fqdn\profiles\userA will point to a share hosted in
> the office of that user, or even \\your.domain.fqdn\profiles could be
> site-specific. Technically on the samba DC it's just a matter of a few
> entries in smb.conf plus symbolic links in the file system of the DC.
Hi Norbert!  That seems like a very interesting way.  I just configured
[profiles] share on a DC, with msdfs root enabled, and created a folder
in it with `mjt' username, pointing to the right file server.

Now I wonder how to configure shares like \\domain.tld\profiles to work?
And should it work with the short name (\\domain\profiles) ?

> I tried to get DFS running with Samba DCs a few years ago. I was not
> successful, and because it was not important for my use case I did not
> try for long and gave up. In theory it should work, and maybe one or the
> other bug might have been resolved in the meantime.
Do you mean the microsoft-tool-manageable DFS, like described in the
doc you pointed to above?  I don't think I really need this so far, it
is easy enough to crate the symlinks :) (btw, these names in the DFS
root really act and shown as symlinks by windows).

What I really want is a short fileserver name (FS) - which the users
are used to, - to point to a site-specific server - this is the main
goal, to register "FS" name local to each site.

A seems-to-be-easier goal is to provide local (site-specific) storage
for user profiles, but that one might be a bit easier since it can
be configured in a single place which is not directly used by the
users (so users wont have to reconfigure all their shortcuts for
example).

> And BTW, thank you for all your hard work for the Debian samba packages!
> You're doing a big favour to the samba community.
You are welcome :)

Thank you!

/mjt

Op 22-11-2022 om 12:23 schreef Michael Tokarev via
samba:
> 18.11.2022 02:25, Norbert Hanke via samba wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> Location-specific DFS might help you: an UNC path looks the same across
>> all offices from the Windows client side, but it is resolves specific
>> for the office it is being accessed from.
>>
>> The concept is explained in Microsoft terms here:
>>
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/dfs-namespaces/dfs-overview
>>
>> .
>>
>> Concluding from a different mail thread, you are working on AD sites
>> reflecting different offices. Once you have that working -
site-specific
>> AD-DCs in the various offices of your company, it will not be a big
step
>> to get site-specific "Folder Targets" (in Microsoft terms)
implemented.
>> E.g. \\your.domain.fqdn\profiles\userA will point to a share hosted in
>> the office of that user, or even \\your.domain.fqdn\profiles could be
>> site-specific. Technically on the samba DC it's just a matter of a
few
>> entries in smb.conf plus symbolic links in the file system of the DC.
>
> Hi Norbert!? That seems like a very interesting way.? I just configured
> [profiles] share on a DC, with msdfs root enabled, and created a folder
> in it with `mjt' username, pointing to the right file server.
>
Are you aware of the source3 vs source4 differences, i.e. it is better 
not to host shares on a DC?
> Now I wonder how to configure shares like \\domain.tld\profiles to work?
> And should it work with the short name (\\domain\profiles) ?
>
>
>> I tried to get DFS running with Samba DCs a few years ago. I was not
>> successful, and because it was not important for my use case I did not
>> try for long and gave up. In theory it should work, and maybe one or
the
>> other bug might have been resolved in the meantime.
>
> Do you mean the microsoft-tool-manageable DFS, like described in the
> doc you pointed to above?? I don't think I really need this so far, it
> is easy enough to crate the symlinks :) (btw, these names in the DFS
> root really act and shown as symlinks by windows).
>
> What I really want is a short fileserver name (FS) - which the users
> are used to, - to point to a site-specific server - this is the main
> goal, to register "FS" name local to each site.
>
> A seems-to-be-easier goal is to provide local (site-specific) storage
> for user profiles, but that one might be a bit easier since it can
> be configured in a single place which is not directly used by the
> users (so users wont have to reconfigure all their shortcuts for
> example).
>
>
>> And BTW, thank you for all your hard work for the Debian samba
packages!
>> You're doing a big favour to the samba community.
>
> You are welcome :)
>
> Thank you!
>
> /mjt
>