[Fedora-directory-users] Trying to set up a simple authentication and file server

[Andy Schofield]

Please excuse the obvious newbie posting: I am struggling to get my
head round fedora-ds and what I am trying to do must be so standard.

I am trying to set up a simple server for about 20 users that allows
clients running Redhat Enterprise 4 to authenticate over ldap and find
the automounter map which tells them how to automount a users home
space. 

We are moving from a solaris NIS server which from a clients
perspective is trivial to setup:
 you just run system-config-authentication
 + enable "configure NIS"
 + fill in the NIS domain and the NIS server and it just works.

Running system-config-authentication also has an option to enable
"configure LDAP" where you fill in the LDAP Search Base DN and the LDAP
Server. I would like to create the server that will respond
appropriately. 

So my questions:

(1) Is fedora-ds the right tool for the job? Perhaps it is using a
sledgehammer to crack a nut.

(2) I've more or less got the authentication bit working but the
console seems counter intuitive. The opening screen has a tab "Users
and Group" which allows you to search and add users but this, as far as
I can see, as nothing to do with the users that the server will
authenticate. They need to be added way down the tree, 
by opening the Directory Server,
choosing the suffix and rightclicking the "People" and adding new. 
Is this the correct method of adding users?
(I don't want to import them from the passwd file - there are so few of
them I want to do things by hand).

(3) How do I add the automap? Various websites talk about
"automountInformation:" entry, but where does that come in? It does not
appear as an attribute I can add to a person.

(4) Does anyone know of a simple walk-through documentation to do this
as I am surely not the first person to try and do this with FDS?

Thanks for your help
Andy