[CS-FSLUG] NFS Scenarios

[David Aikema]

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:08:53 -0500, Don Parris <gnumathetes at gmail.com> wrote:
> an example or two.  For example, I would like to allow users on a LAN
> to store their files on their computers, but public files in a public
> directory, stored on the file server.  

Be warned of the low security of NFS.  All it'll do as far as checking
ownership goes is checking to see if the numeric userid is the same as
the one you feed it from a remote system.

It might also be nice to use something like autofs for mounting the
nfs directory, as if you lose connection with your nfs server
otherwise the box won't like it.

> However, if I want to have everyone store all their files on the
> server, knowing that each user gets a home dir on their own box, how
> do I manage this?  I'm taking a wild guess here, but...

IIRC, all you have to do is ensure that wherever the user will look
for its home directory it'll find the NFS-mounted one.

> I would have to add all users to the server, along with their own /home/~user
> I would guess I need to use LDAP (rather than NIS), but how to
> configure the workstations so the users can actually login?  Obviously

I've done something like this before, but using NIS rather than LDAP. 
Anyways, it's been long enough now that I can't quite remember how it
all went.  I did a quick google search and came up with the following
article that may be of use to you:
http://www.freeos.com/articles/2843/

David