samba - Sep 2018 - Folder Sync for road warriors in a Samba 4.8.x setup?

Hi All,

I know this isn't really a Samba question per se but I'm looking for
some
samba-related advice.. :)

I have a very small AD DC setup (5 users) and some end-users (read: 
teenargers) are now using laptops, which means they don't always have 
access to the network shares configured by GPO and Logon scripts from the 
Samba servers when they take the laptop to school. (The Samba servers 
aren't our fileservers but the shares are hosts on RHEL7 hosts too).

What do people use to make files available offline for road 
warriors/students and sync them back to the fileservers when they come 
home? Are there known gotchas, do's and dont's? I'd like to avoid
using
OneDrive and GDrive. I am currently Wondering if Windows Folder Sync would 
work in such a setup. The mobile users are all using Window 10 1803 x64 
laptops.

Any ideas?

Many Thanks,

Vincent

I assume the SMB/CIFS share is simply a place to hold the files for backup, not
active sharing of the files, right?
[Because if they're all off on laptops for school, each child really
isn't actively sharing files with anyone else on the share, in any practical
way, correct?]

So, instead of worrying about centralizing files, focus on your real goal,
backup.
[Unless I'm missing something here...]

And IMO, the hands-down best backup, and which will likely work very well for
your distributed users is duplicati, and the target for backups would be
something like Google drive. [Essentially, any time the laptops are active,
they're probably connected to the internet somewhere.]

The only reason I pick Google drive is that it's free for small data-sets
[<15GB or so, IIRC - including all your google data.]
Unless you're talking a lot of photos or video, this will work fine.

Go look at duplicati - it's very space and bandwidth efficient. And all data
is [or can be] encrypted prior to push to the cloud provider, so you have zero
trust in the back-end storage in terms of privacy.

---
I do similar things to what you're asking above, for myself for my own
consulting practice. But I'm a bad procrastinator, and somewhat lazy, so
sync'ing data is hit and miss. And at least a few times a year, I have a
local copy that gets modified along with the one on the share. And then the sync
nukes the oldest one, but since both contain changes, I lose the data in the one
that gets overwritten.

I can't imagine some automated process handling students well - who are
likely even less structured than I am. [Not that I'm the standard in
meticulous syncing etc, I'm not. But I think I'm likely lots better than
most HS and college age kids.]

[BTW, I use beyond compare for sync management.]

HTH

-Greg



VSCvs> Hi All,

VSCvs> I know this isn't really a Samba question per se but I'm
looking for some
VSCvs> samba-related advice.. :)

VSCvs> I have a very small AD DC setup (5 users) and some end-users (read: 
VSCvs> teenargers) are now using laptops, which means they don't always
have
VSCvs> access to the network shares configured by GPO and Logon scripts from
the
VSCvs> Samba servers when they take the laptop to school. (The Samba servers 
VSCvs> aren't our fileservers but the shares are hosts on RHEL7 hosts
too).

VSCvs> What do people use to make files available offline for road 
VSCvs> warriors/students and sync them back to the fileservers when they come
VSCvs> home? Are there known gotchas, do's and dont's? I'd like
to avoid using
VSCvs> OneDrive and GDrive. I am currently Wondering if Windows Folder Sync
would
VSCvs> work in such a setup. The mobile users are all using Window 10 1803
x64
VSCvs> laptops.

VSCvs> Any ideas?

VSCvs> Many Thanks,

VSCvs> Vincent

Mandi! Vincent S. Cojot via samba
  In chel di` si favelave...
> Any ideas?
For winows client you can enable 'Cliend Side Caching', or 'Offline
File and Folders', standard Windows features.

Works pretty well, and as many 'Microsoft Things' sometime
'breaks' and
have to be resetted.

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