Dr Hu

OK....I am just starting to set up home directories for all of our users (have finally invested in some disk space!)

We have an NT4 server, and a mixture of NT4 workstation & W2K/XP clients.

When setting the home directories in their user accounts:-

i.e. Connect S: to \\Server1\User Files\%USERNAME%

The domain sets up the share automatically in their 'My Computer', but on Win2K and XP PCs it opens directly into their new empty server folder (result!) HOWEVER on the NT4 PC's it only takes them as far as the User Files folder and they have to search for their own folder to open it.

Now on a network of 200+ users this is a lot of folders to look through.

WHY OH WHY OH WHY does it do this and is there any fix? Its a royal pain in the ****!

TIA

David_Wallis

You are going to have to create each home drive as a share..

Ie

Setup your folder

d:\users\joeblogs.. -- > shared as users \joeblogs

instead of having 1 share... you will have to share the folder for each user...

d:\users\joeblogs shared as joeblogs$

then replace line in usr mgr with

\\server\%username%$

or \\server\joeblogs$

and dont bother sharing the users folder..

alternatively for nt4 you can do in a login script

subst h: \\server\users\joebloggs

but it wont work on 2000 / xp I dont think..

hope this makes sense..

David

Dr Hu

ALSO......

How long should a 120Gb Mirror set take to initialise?...Its been going 20Hrs now and it has'nt finished yet? (2x120Gb IBM Deskstar IDE's)

Is this right or should I be worried?

David_Wallis

dont wory... it takes a while.. Where did you see that... in disk admin or eventvwr?

I presume we are talking about software mirror?

Compaq is nice and quick!

David

Dr Hu

David......

So i have to set up each folder manually, share it add the permissions....for 200+ users........shureley you jest?

I though this was the whole point of the Connect S: to %USERNAME% or have I been misled?

father_jack

For the home dir problem, we just did a shortcut on the desktop with e.g. h:\%USERNAME% as the target - this will work for the right person when they are logged in.
I'd be a bit worried about that mirror tho

David_Wallis

do something like dir /ad /b >dirs.txt

this will give you a list of homedrives..

Then get rmtshare and cacls from the resource kit and use excel to write a simple batch file to share them all out..

Let me know if this doesnt make sense, and Ill sort something out for you..

David

Dr Hu

Aha...so my mishtake was to share the User Files folder.......??

But doesnt the Usrmgr create the Home Directory folders automatically shared? or are they getting the share permissions from the upper User Files folder?

Scoobynet - it can please, it can answer, it often baffles

& I never even knew rmtshare & cacls existed!

merlin

Don't want to worry you but IBM (or should I say Hitachi) drives now have a very bad reputation... from here, "May they rest in peace. At least they won't be making Death er Deskstars anymore." And I used to work for IBM too - sad times.

David_Wallis

You didnt know calcs existed? poor sod.. you can add permissions quite nicely with this..

You wont know about robocopy either then?

just dont use xcopy... doesnt like deepfile names... (robocopy will keep permissions / purge files etc (ooh netware speak!))

You can either write a login script to subst the drive, if the os is nt 4 / 95 / 98 (messy) and then just net use on 2k...

Permissions.. hmm

Ok, Lets assume your running NTFS.. if your not then type convert c: /fs:ntfs or replace drive letter with one of your choice... infact if your mirroring disks then you will be...

Share level permissions are different to ntfs permissions... You would normally leave these set as everyone full control.. there is no need to do anything with these.. you restrict using file / folder permissions..

SharePermissions cannot be inherited as you cannot have a share within a share so to speak.

its not a mistake what you have done, its just very common for people to accept that way of doing it in a small network..

It will say in usrmgr that the homedrive for user cannot / couldn't be created, you must create this manually..

On your blank disk that we will call d: Create a folder called Users this will inherit permissions from the root... all folders created allways inherit the permissions from above.. (2000 can be different.)

This folder will then probably have local admins, creator / owner / system and everyone with full control rights..

At this point I would remove everyone from here.. as you dont want any new home drive inheriting everyone full control.

You then want to create each person a homedrive in here.. preferably the same as their username. (we use initals and day & moth of your birthday.. so my username would be dw3101)

Create a folder called dw3101

Check the permissions on this folder.. it wants to have the local admins group with full control and the user with change rights.

Share the folder out as dw3101$

(in usrmgr you should have allready set connect h: to \\server\dw3101$ or \\server\%username%$ - it will then change this.)

Dont share the users folder at all..

Hope this makes sense to you??

Ill knock some scripts up to make this easier for you..

David

David_Wallis

right you owe me.. been doing this since last post...

firstly.. you need windows scripting host and adsi interfaces installed.. search on google for adsi interfaces.. wsh should be installed with ie..

Run this on the server...

make sure cacls is in c:\winnt\system32

also need to create a file call yes.txt in the root of c:\

do the following...

COPY CON YES.TXT <press the enter key>
y<press the enter key>
<Press Control-Z to exit and save the file>
This creates a text file with the Y and ENTER

Heres the script... save as test.vbs or something..

to run goto a command prompt and type cscript test.vbs

' Create HomeDrives, Shares and Set Relevant Permissions for all users in the SAM
' David Wallis 22/05/2002

On Error Resume Next

strDomainName = "Wallis" ' Domain Name
strServerName = "Gateway" ' Without preceding double backslash.
strHomeDrivePath = "C:\Temp\Users" ' Path to homedrives

Set objDomain = GetObject("WinNT://" & strDomainName)
Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

objDomain.Filter = Array("user")

For Each member In objDomain
Wscript.echo "Creating Home Drive for " & member.name

' Create Homedrive folder if it doesnt exist.
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If Not FSO.FolderExists(strHomeDrivePath & "\" & member.name) Then
Wscript.Echo "Creating folder for User " & member.name
FSO.CreateFolder(strHomeDrivePath & "\" & member.name)
End If
Set FSO = Nothing

' Run CACLS to set permissions
cmd = "cmd /c c:\winnt\system32\cacls.exe " & strHomeDrivePath & "\" & member.name &" /T /G Administrators:F " & strDomainName & "\" & member.name & ":C " & chr(34) & strDomainName & "\Domain Admins" & chr(34) & ":F <c:\yes.txt"
shell.run (cmd)

' Set Home Drive Information
Set DomObj = GetObject("WinNT://" & strDomainName & "/" & member.name & ",user")
DomObj.Put "HomeDirDrive", "H:"
DomObj.HomeDirectory = "\\" & strServerName & "\" & member.name & "$"
DomObj.SetInfo
Set DomObj = Nothing

' Create Share on Server
Set DomObj1 = GetObject("WinNT://" & strDomainName & "/" & strServerName & "/lanmanserver")
Set Share = DomObj1.Create("fileshare", member.name & "$")
Share.Path = strHomeDrivePath & "\" & member.name
Share.SetInfo
Set DomObj1 = Nothing


Next

You might have to click edit post for it to look right....

Good Luck

David

David_Wallis

ttt as I spent ages on that!

David

Dr Hu

David......spending time on this????.....should'nt you be welding something

Thats cool.....so correct me if I'm wrong - I now need to...

A. Add all my outstanding user accounts to the domain
B. Set all their Home Folders as Connect S: to.....blah
c. Run your script
d. walk away with glory.......

Cool......

Mucho Grassy **** for that!

edited to say:- I did'nt know you were a script kiddie!


[Edited by Dr Hu - 6/21/2002 2:19:08 PM]

David_Wallis

Add Accounts to domain...

Dont need to set home to connect to blah... it will do that, it will also create the folder and set the permissions and share it out..

just change the lines at the top that have domain name and servername...

Should run ok...

edited to add... that this is a toy script compared to some I have done.. (Admin Scripting, and login scripts are my speciality!)

David


[Edited by David_Wallis - 6/21/2002 2:54:59 PM]

Dr Hu

David,

I ran your script last nite after adding the rest of our user accounts to the SAM.

I have to say it worked superbly, and very quickly too!

I can't thank you enough! - I deffo owe you a beer or 10.

It would appear that I am on the lower slopes of the Domain Management mountain!

I bow to your superior knowledge

David_Wallis

What can I say??

I try to help where I can... besides I enjoy a challenge... its what keeps me in this job... (shame about this company... and this role..)

I need a job...

http://www.wallis2000.co.uk/dw03122001.pdf

its not superior knowledge... its experience! you have to do things like this to make a **** product acceptable... I believe you should make the best out of what youve got before you decide to upgrade

drop me a mail if you ever need anything else..

David

Dr Hu

Hehehehe - may just do that!!

Nicely laid out CV - looks very professional - good luck!

Dr Hu

p.s Anybody else had trouble with Home Directories and XP Offline File Sharing/Syncronisation - none of our XP clients could see their documents in their home folders until we turned off Offline File Sharing - caused a few scratched heads this morning!

David_Wallis