I know it can be done, but I must admit that this is the first time I've ever encountered a situation where it would be advantageous to have one user database on multiple Linux systems. Because of this, I have absolutely no idea how to go about ensuring this. Anyone have good tips for a novice in this area?
Basically, I want to be able to execute useradd/whatever on the workstation (if possible, if not on the sever is okay), have it update a central user db location, and then be able to login to the workstation normally. The user's /home directory would be on the server and nfs mounted to each workstation. If possible, I'd really prefer that the shell for workstations be set to whatever useradd uses (i.e. default to bash unless other shell specified, then use that instead), but on the server the shell is ALWAYS set to /sbin/nologin. I have to have the user account existing on the server because the server will hosting a lot of files (not just /home, but other files in other directories too), and will be making those files available not just via nfs but via Samba too. Last I saw, smbpasswd wouldn't add a user to the smbpasswd file unless they already existed in the system user database. Now if there's a way around THAT, then sweet, please let me know. But the user must at the very least exist on a user database that each workstation can access, and exist in /etc/samba/smbpasswd so that they can establish samba connections. I was thinking I might just go for NIS+ or something, but I have absolutely NO idea how to set anything like that up. So any tips are most welcome. The solution I have now works, but is a MAJOR kludge. I'd really like to streamline this process! Thanks! --- Dan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
