Setting up some kind of automated file share server per windows user.

[jsmith1981]

I am really not sure on what to do about this.

Just seen at many educational institutions that when I logged in as a student at University (this is me being very nerdy haha!)

But when I signed into the colleges/or university network, I saw my own network drive, with no other users folders or files on that network drive.

I knew it would be on some kind of server, with many students directories etc in there but how would I go about setting something like this up?

I use an old belkin router, with the DHCP server turned off, which I would prefer to leave it as, but allow the same server to assign computers IP's.

Basically I would like to know tips of how to get it so that if you want to be a user on any of my 2 computers, to have to make a login on my Linux Centos 4 server, then you would be given a few samba network drives when you go to login.

Also a DHCP server that allows that computer to gain access to the network and ultimately the Internet, with a hardware firewall, so I can get rid of my firewall off my nodes and it would be just as safe, if not safer.

Can someone help me out? I am dying to know how to make this work, would be a good learning experience for myself too!

Thanks for reading and I look forward to any (preferably tutorials rather than guides) replies,
Jeremy.

[gerald_clark]

Samba has private directories. See the Samba Docs.
Most hardware firewalls include a dhcp server.
If you don't want to use that, look at dnsmasq.
It does dhcp, dns, and tftp. Makes a great all-in-one boot server.

[jsmith1981]

How would I get windows to find network directories handled by samba though?

Like on a per user basis?

Just find that part quite confusing to be fair.

[gerald_clark]

The same way you find directories on any other server.
You really need to read the Samba DOCs.

Did you read the deployment guides?
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/

New users are supposed to read:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=47

[pschaff]

[quote]
jsmith1981 wrote:
How would I get windows to find network directories handled by samba though?[/quote]
By having the server and the clients in the same workgroup.

[quote]
Like on a per user basis?

Just find that part quite confusing to be fair.[/quote]

Here's a sample snippet from /etc/samba/smb.conf defining a per-user share:[code]
[user_dirs]
comment = /data/[user] on Server1
path = /data/%U
valid users = %U
public = no
writable = yes
printable = no
[/code]

Assume the server is called "server1", the user is "user1", and that the directory /data/user1 exists on server1 and is owned by user1. If the user is logged in on a Windows machine as user1 (preferably using the same password as Samba has for user1 on server1) and browses to the share \\server1\user_dirs [s]he will be presented with the contents of /data1/user1/.