Is there such a thing as a roaming profile for GNU/Linux users?

One thing that I like about Windoze is the idea of a roaming profile

that is stored on a Primary Domain Controller. And that each client on
the domain basically contains no critical user data (allowing for easy
reinstalling of experimental oses).

The question is: can this be done in a *nix environment? I've heard
terms like NIS, NIS+, Kerberos bandies about, but I would like to know
about any schemes out there that basically authenticate network users
and then serve up their /home directory. My server runs RH9 and is also
a PDC for a Samba2.2.7a NT domain. I'd really like to use Samba in any
solution, but if it cant be done, so be it.

Any help = muchly appreciated.

Ben O

Ben O'Brien wrote:
>
> One thing that I like about Windoze is the idea of a roaming profile
> that is stored on a Primary Domain Controller. And that each client on
> the domain basically contains no critical user data (allowing for easy
> reinstalling of experimental oses).
>
> The question is: can this be done in a *nix environment? I've heard
> terms like NIS, NIS+, Kerberos bandies about, but I would like to know
> about any schemes out there that basically authenticate network users
> and then serve up their /home directory.


A combination of NIS (aka "yp", aka "Yellow Pages") and NFS has been
the most common way to do this on UNIX since the 80s. Both have some
security issues, but they're still widely used.

NIS is a replacement for /etc/passwd (it's more, but that's enough
for now). The login program on the client machine queries a server
to do password validation.

One of the things in /etc/passwd is the home directory of the user.
If you put that home directory on a server, export it with NFS, and
mount it on the client machine, then you've got what you're after.

I do this at home with a Redhat 9.0 server and a mix of different
clients (FreeBSD, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSE, Knoppix). It works okay
for my small network, safe inside a firewall. People do this same
thing for really big networks, but I don't know that they use GNU/Linux
for the NFS server in those situations.

There are NIS and NFS HowTo's around.

Duke