[K12OSN] Distributed Samba deployment opinions?

[Quentin Hartman]

Colleagues-
	I am going to be deploying a Samba domain / file serving infrastructure
in my district this summer. The buildings in my district are
interconnected via T1 lines, and the major design goals of this project
are:

1- Only Internet and authentication should generally traverse the T1
links between buildings (each building has its own file server locally).

2- Authentication should work globally so that people may easily move
from building to building and still have things work, even if their home
directory is not stored on the local file server.

3- Home directories need to be easy to migrate from one file server to
another should someone permanently change buildings.

I haven't deployed a Samba domain this complex before, and I would like
some feedback on the following points:

1- Would it be better to set this up as one large domain, or several
smaller domains (ie- one for each building)?

2- How does the above choice affect user and home directory creation /
management?

3- Would it make sense to have one centrally located Samba machine do
the authentication and have the building servers act only as file
servers, or would should each building machine handle authentication
requests for its building, only referencing a central LDAP server?

4- How does the system know which server to pull the user's home
directory from?

I have thought of a few solutions, but they all seem less than ideal to
me. Also, the reference materials I have looked at do not address a
setup like this. What are your thoughts? Have you found materials that
talk about this sort of structure? What were they?

-- 
-Regards-

-Quentin Hartman-

Technology Coordinator
South Lane School District
Cottage Grove, Oregon
Office- 541.767.3778
Mobile- 541-501-1197
qhartman at lane.k12.or.us