[Tfug] Roaming profiles question

[Ronald Sutherland]

Since I'm not playing video games I'm going to give this a few words, they
won't help...
Anyway roaming profiles are a windows concept right? its sort of like a
/home/<user> following a person around in a NIS network (sun stuff,
Linux/BSD yellow pages, ypbind....). When you log into any PC your home area
and all the user configuration crap follows you, I guess thats the icons and
what not on windows (I've never used it... as I said I'm not trying to
help).

Any chance the rep's are using a textual file? If so (possibly even if not)
I would consider using something like Subversion or CVS to put there data
in. Put a client on there windows computers like

http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
http://www.tortoisecvs.org/

setup a SVN or CVS server (linux or BSD) that has a version managed set of
the data so that they also have access, and add the current files. Show them
how to update, and commit with the options those software clients add to the
file browser. They should be able to update or commit any time the laptop
has internet access, also others can use the latest data as is or wait for
the reps to commit changes.

The bad new is this is a fair amount of work, mostly setting up user names
and access rights, getting the version management server initialized, and
figuring out what protocol options make sense. The good news is it gives a
history of who changed it, when it changed, and what was changed. I find
this level of detail helpful for many of my projects not just software.

As for network issues, such problems are plaguing many, I think it's a
discipline issue in the since that our corporations are filling up with
tools we don't know how to make wise use of. YouTube is a good example,
where people in all corners of the corporation are burning bandwidth (its
not Porn like the old days). Where I work the IT group ended up turning off
the internet for about a week, they simply waited for the complaints and
then helped those users machines, and we all got a talk, it seems to have
worked out so far. YouTube is just another place for infectious ideas, so
I've been avoiding it (like the plague it is).

The only computer setups I've seen remain stable are those that are
isolated, not part of a domain. I have a number of test computers that I've
never added to a domain, and they have no problems, get there updates, login
fast and so on. I think there are all sorts of problems with how domains
function, but at the very least a centralized permission system just sounds
to me like a security risk. It would seem to me that a decentralized
permission system is safer, but what IT group wants to put a user name in
each computer and setup a separate account for SVN, e-mail, ERP system, and
file servers. I think the answer is in moderation, it may very well add a
lot of security to have SVN, e-mail, and ERP off the domain, which is saved
for file servers and other services that we do not want to export outside. I
don't even like the idea of VPN because you have no idea what other networks
are connected on the other end.

Well enough its late, and the beer is doing its thing... All I can really do
is setup my own computers, and its a non stop experiment =). It may well be
that corporations need to accept and take into account the experimental
nature of there own networks. Its not like any one person knows all thats
going on inside a computer now days, we are all making guesses about a great
many things.

On 10/26/07, Rushd <Rushd at ironandwood.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Where I work we are having problems with roaming profiles. There are about
> 15 workstations and 3 laptops. Everybody logs on to their own individual
> workstation/laptop, never on to anybody else's. The laptops are used by
> reps
> that need to go out in the field and input info. All the programs they
> need
> to use are on their laptops. It is just the files that they update. When
> they leave they take a copy of the files needed and nobody is supposed to
> access those files while the reps are gone. When the reps come back, they
> upload the changed files into the server and everybody then has permission
> to use the files. All the laptops have roaming profiles and it now takes
> them about 5-10 minutes to log on to the intranet. It is also creating
> problems on the server for the rest of us for some reason we don't know...
>
> My question is - in this situation, where everybody has their own log in
> station, are roaming profiles needed? My understanding is that basically
> roaming profiles are used only if people log on to multiple workstations.
>
> Rush
> Tucson, AZ
> www.ironandwood.org
> www.Airphibian.com
> www.TEVA2.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
> Subscription Options:
> http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>