[K12OSN] Roaming profiles

[David Trask]

"Support list for opensource software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com> on
Friday, September 23, 2005 at 10:56 AM +0000 wrote:
>My /home is it's own partition. I have 146gb open on that one. I didn't 
>know if I could do a mandatory profile or not.
>I have a mix of win98,2k,xp and all do not have the same programs 
>loaded. So if I put shortcuts for programs that exist on one machine 
>that doesn't exist on another, it will confuse them.
>I would love to see your script. I'm trying to hold out to 2pm when the 
>high school lets out. I have 434mb left open on the /opt partition 
>before she's full. Luckly I put the /opt on it's own partition.
>Thanks
>Mark

Something is wrong....dude....your high school ain't that big.  I only
have a 36 gb SCSI drive for 600 users.  We're 3 - 4 weeks into the school
year and only 4.4 gb has been used.  Text files, normal pics, and even
spreadsheets and powerpoints...don't take up that much room.  If they're
saving anything bigger than that to their profile...then they
shouldn't...as it'll slow the login process tremendously....and it's not a
good thing to do.  Are you mapping /home/username via a login script?  If
not...you should...and encourage them to save larger files there.  My kids
simply save there anyway as we've told them it's safer since it saves
instantly as opposed to saving on "log-off".  You probably should scan
your drive for "illicit files" like MP3's....etc.  And then write a script
to delete them.  Something like....(and I have NOT tested this...so don't
necessarily use it)

!#/bin/bash
for x in `ls /home`; do
echo "Doing $x ..."
cd /opt/samba/profiles/${x}/My\ Documents
rm -f *.mp3

this is only an example....you can modify to suit....and even add to cover
more filetypes....etc.

Now...the way around the shortcuts issue...is to simply leave the
shortcuts on the machine....don't make them part of the profile.  Follow
my how-to with the smbldap-installer (near the end of the doc) on how to
create a default profile.  I have never done an enforced "mandatory"
profile....mine is simply a common starting point.  But...even a mandatory
profile (unless you can enforce a quota) won't keep your profiles from
growing.  I use DeepFreeze so the machines never change....the profiles
do, but the machines don't.


David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Coordinator
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100