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CIFS home directory for guest?
Hi folks -
I have an NS80 running 8000 home directories across several filesystems. I want to create a home directory for "guest" users (basically, anyone who does not have a pre-created directory in home_fs**) to mount at login. I've read the "EMC Celerra Home Directory" whitepaper, which says to put a guest-style login at the top of the file. So now, my homedir file looks like this:
Does this make sense? Anyone doing anything similar? Am I putting a lot of unnecessary workload on the box, having to search the mapping file? Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
I have an NS80 running 8000 home directories across several filesystems. I want to create a home directory for "guest" users (basically, anyone who does not have a pre-created directory in home_fs**) to mount at login. I've read the "EMC Celerra Home Directory" whitepaper, which says to put a guest-style login at the top of the file. So now, my homedir file looks like this:
*:*:\home_fs01\home\no_user_acct
*:[a-b]:\home_fs01\home\:regex
*:[c-d]:\home_fs02\home\:regex
*:[e-i]:\home_fs03\home\:regex
*:[j-k]:\home_fs04\home\:regex
*:[l-m]:\home_fs05\home\:regex
*:[n-q]:\home_fs06\home\:regex
*:[r-s]:\home_fs07\home\:regex
*:[t-z]:\home_fs08\home\:regex
Does this make sense? Anyone doing anything similar? Am I putting a lot of unnecessary workload on the box, having to search the mapping file? Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
Dan_McNair
17 Posts
0
July 6th, 2009 11:00
If this isn't for a common guest account (ie, each has a unique login) you might want to enable auto-create on the guest home directory entry so that each guest is dumped into his own private area. If one of those guests becomes a regular user with a real homedir then you can just move the directory from the guests file system to a home directory file system. It may make cleanup of that temporary area easier, too. Otherwise they'll all go to the same directory and see each others' files (but if that's what you want then you're on the right track).
You shouldn't put a huge strain on your x-blade by doing this unless you have a large number of guest logins. (I assume your number of guests will be only a small fraction of your number of normal users.) The fact that you have a small home directory database helps. It's when folks put way too many entries in the database that we would expect to see login times increase significantly. I'd recommend evaluating your performance impact along the lines of additional CIFS utilization (as you're increasing the total number of CIFS users) rather than homedir mapping because the mapping operation on your home directory database should be very fast.
(To others that may read the thread, please avoid putting a unique entry in your homedir database for every user. With 1000 users who each have a row in the home directory database, then each time a user maps his home directory it is 1000-2000 rows that must be processed by the x-blade. With 1000 users and only 10 entries in the database, then when a user maps his home directory it is 10-20 rows that must be processed by the x-blade. So you can see how the size of your homedir database will affect x-blade load and homedir login time. Think small when it comes to the home directory database -- with wildcards, regular expressions, and username/domain substitution at your disposal you shouldn't need a large database.)
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
-Dan
umichklewis_ac7b91
300 Posts
0
July 6th, 2009 11:00
umichklewis_ac7b91
300 Posts
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July 6th, 2009 12:00
The entry is for a common guest account - anyone who doesn't match an existing entry will use a pre-created guest account. This is to facilitate Windows Roaming Profiles in our environment. With a guest folder pre-populated, we can skip copying a new profile to the local computer and just use an existing one.
Thanks again!