Configuration instructions: Setting up Roaming User Profiles

Warning

NOTE! Roaming profiles support is different for Win9X and WinNT.

Before discussing how to configure roaming profiles, it is useful to see how Win9X and WinNT clients implement these features.

Win9X clients send a NetUserGetInfo request to the server to get the user's profiles location. However, the response does not have room for a separate profiles location field, only the user's home share. This means that Win9X profiles are restricted to being in the user's home directory.

WinNT clients send a NetSAMLogon RPC request, which contains many fields, including a separate field for the location of the user's profiles. This means that support for profiles is different for Win9X and WinNT.

Windows NT configuration

To support WinNT clients, inn the [global] section of smb.conf set the following (for example) :

logon path = \profileserver\profileshare\profilepath\%U\moreprofilepath

The default for this option is \%N\%U\profile, namely \sambaserver\username\profile. The \N%\%U service is created automatically by the [homes] service. If you are using a samba server for the profiles, you _must_ make the share specified in the logon path browseable.

Note: [lkcl 26aug96 – we have discovered a problem where Windows clients can maintain a connection to the [homes] share in between logins. The [homes] share must NOT therefore be used in a profile path.]

Windows 9X configuration

To support Win9X clients, you must use the "logon home" parameter. Samba has now been fixed so that "net use/home" now works as well, and it, too, relies on the "logon home" parameter.

By using the logon home parameter, you are restricted to putting Win9X profiles in the user's home directory. But wait! There is a trick you can use. If you set the following in the [global] section of your smb.conf file:

logon home = \%L\%U\.profiles

then your Win9X clients will dutifully put their clients in a subdirectory of your home directory called .profiles (thus making them hidden).

Not only that, but 'net use/home' will also work, because of a feature in Win9X. It removes any directory stuff off the end of the home directory area and only uses the server and share portion. That is, it looks like you specified \%L\%U for "logon home".

Win9X and WinNT Configuration

You can support profiles for both Win9X and WinNT clients by setting both the "logon home" and "logon path" parameters. For example:

logon home = \%L\%U\.profiles
logon path = \%L\profiles\%U

Note: I have not checked what 'net use /home' does on NT when "logon home" is set as above.

Windows 9X profile setup

When a user first logs in on Windows 9X, the file user.DAT is created, as are folders "Start Menu", "Desktop", "Programs" and "Nethood". These directories and their contents will be merged with the local versions stored in c:\windows\profiles\username on subsequent logins, taking the most recent from each. You will need to use the [global] options "preserve case = yes", "short case preserve = yes" and "case sensitive = no" in order to maintain capital letters in shortcuts in any of the profile folders.

The user.DAT file contains all the user's preferences. If you wish to enforce a set of preferences, rename their user.DAT file to user.MAN, and deny them write access to this file.

1. On the Windows 95 machine, go to Control Panel | Passwords and select the User Profiles tab. Select the required level of roaming preferences. Press OK, but do _not_ allow the computer to reboot.

2. On the Windows 95 machine, go to Control Panel | Network | Client for Microsoft Networks | Preferences. Select 'Log on to NT Domain'. Then, ensure that the Primary Logon is 'Client for Microsoft Networks'. Press OK, and this time allow the computer to reboot.

Under Windows 95, Profiles are downloaded from the Primary Logon. If you have the Primary Logon as 'Client for Novell Networks', then the profiles and logon script will be downloaded from your Novell Server. If you have the Primary Logon as 'Windows Logon', then the profiles will be loaded from the local machine – a bit against the concept of roaming profiles, if you ask me.

You will now find that the Microsoft Networks Login box contains [user, password, domain] instead of just [user, password]. Type in the samba server's domain name (or any other domain known to exist, but bear in mind that the user will be authenticated against this domain and profiles downloaded from it, if that domain logon server supports it), user name and user's password.

Once the user has been successfully validated, the Windows 95 machine will inform you that 'The user has not logged on before' and asks you if you wish to save the user's preferences? Select 'yes'.

Once the Windows 95 client comes up with the desktop, you should be able to examine the contents of the directory specified in the "logon path" on the samba server and verify that the "Desktop", "Start Menu", "Programs" and "Nethood" folders have been created.

These folders will be cached locally on the client, and updated when the user logs off (if you haven't made them read-only by then :-). You will find that if the user creates further folders or short-cuts, that the client will merge the profile contents downloaded with the contents of the profile directory already on the local client, taking the newest folders and short-cuts from each set.

If you have made the folders / files read-only on the samba server, then you will get errors from the w95 machine on logon and logout, as it attempts to merge the local and the remote profile. Basically, if you have any errors reported by the w95 machine, check the unix file permissions and ownership rights on the profile directory contents, on the samba server.

If you have problems creating user profiles, you can reset the user's local desktop cache, as shown below. When this user then next logs in, they will be told that they are logging in "for the first time".

1.  instead of logging in under the [user, password, domain] dialog, press escape.

2. run the regedit.exe program, and look in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Windows\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

3. you will find an entry, for each user, of ProfilePath. Note the contents of this key (likely to be c:\windows\profiles\username), then delete the key ProfilePath for the required user.

[Exit the registry editor].

WARNING  – before deleting the contents of the directory listed in the ProfilePath (this is likely to be c:\windows\profiles\username), ask them if they have any important files stored on their desktop or in their start menu. delete the contents of the directory ProfilePath (making a backup if any of the files are needed).

This will have the effect of removing the local (read-only hidden system file) user.DAT in their profile directory, as well as the local "desktop", "nethood", "start menu" and "programs" folders.

4. search for the user's .PWL password-caching file in the c:\windows directory, and delete it.

5. log off the windows 95 client.

6. check the contents of the profile path (see "logon path" described above), and delete the user.DAT or user.MAN file for the user, making a backup if required.

If all else fails, increase samba's debug log levels to between 3 and 10, and / or run a packet trace program such as tcpdump or netmon.exe, and look for any error reports.

If you have access to an NT server, then first set up roaming profiles and / or netlogons on the NT server. Make a packet trace, or examine the example packet traces provided with NT server, and see what the differences are with the equivalent samba trace.

Windows NT Workstation 4.0

When a user first logs in to a Windows NT Workstation, the profile NTuser.DAT is created. The profile location can be now specified through the "logon path" parameter.

Note: [lkcl 10aug97 – I tried setting the path to \samba-server\homes\profile, and discovered that this fails because a background process maintains the connection to the [homes] share which does _not_ close down in between user logins. you have to have \samba-server\%L\profile, where user is the username created from the [homes] share].

There is a parameter that is now available for use with NT Profiles: "logon drive". This should be set to "h:" or any other drive, and should be used in conjunction with the new "logon home" parameter.

The entry for the NT 4.0 profile is a _directory_ not a file. The NT help on profiles mentions that a directory is also created with a .PDS extension. The user, while logging in, must have write permission to create the full profile path (and the folder with the .PDS extension) [lkcl 10aug97 – i found that the creation of the .PDS directory failed, and had to create these manually for each user, with a shell script. also, i presume, but have not tested, that the full profile path must be browseable just as it is for w95, due to the manner in which they attempt to create the full profile path: test existence of each path component; create path component].

In the profile directory, NT creates more folders than 95. It creates "Application Data" and others, as well as "Desktop", "Nethood", "Start Menu" and "Programs". The profile itself is stored in a file NTuser.DAT. Nothing appears to be stored in the .PDS directory, and its purpose is currently unknown.

You can use the System Control Panel to copy a local profile onto a samba server (see NT Help on profiles: it is also capable of firing up the correct location in the System Control Panel for you). The NT Help file also mentions that renaming NTuser.DAT to NTuser.MAN turns a profile into a mandatory one.

Note: [lkcl 10aug97 – i notice that NT Workstation tells me that it is downloading a profile from a slow link. whether this is actually the case, or whether there is some configuration issue, as yet unknown, that makes NT Workstation _think_ that the link is a slow one is a matter to be resolved].

[lkcl 20aug97 – after samba digest correspondence, one user found, and another confirmed, that profiles cannot be loaded from a samba server unless "security = user" and "encrypt passwords = yes" (see the file ENCRYPTION.txt) or "security = server" and "password server = ip.address. of.yourNTserver" are used. Either of these options will allow the NT workstation to access the samba server using LAN manager encrypted passwords, without the user intervention normally required by NT workstation for clear-text passwords].

[lkcl 25aug97 – more comments received about NT profiles: the case of the profile _matters_. the file _must_ be called NTuser.DAT or, for a mandatory profile, NTuser.MAN].

Windows NT Server

There is nothing to stop you specifying any path that you like for the location of users' profiles. Therefore, you could specify that the profile be stored on a samba server, or any other SMB server, as long as that SMB server supports encrypted passwords.