This parameter specifies the home directory
where roaming profiles (NTuser.dat etc files for Windows NT) are
stored. Contrary to previous versions of these manual pages, it has
nothing to do with Win 9X roaming profiles. To find out how to
handle roaming profiles for Win 9X system, see the parameter.
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing you
to have separate logon scripts for each user or machine. It also
specifies the directory from which the "Application Data",
(desktop, start menu,
network neighborhood, programs
and other folders, and their contents, are loaded and displayed on
your Windows NT client.
The share and the path must be readable by the user for
the preferences and directories to be loaded onto the Windows NT
client. The share must be writeable when the user logs in for the first
time, in order that the Windows NT client can create the NTuser.dat
and other directories.
Thereafter, the directories and any of the contents can,
if required, be made read-only. It is not advisable that the
NTuser.dat file be made read-only - rename it to NTuser.man to
achieve the desired effect (a MANdatory
profile).
Windows clients can sometimes maintain a connection to
the [homes] share, even though there is no user logged in.
Therefore, it is vital that the logon path does not include a
reference to the homes share (i.e. setting this parameter to
\%N\%U\profile_path will cause problems).
This option takes the standard substitutions, allowing
you to have separate logon scripts for each user or machine.
Do not quote the value. Setting this as \\%N\profile\%U
will break profile handling. Where the tdbsam or ldapsam passdb backend
is used, at the time the user account is created the value configured
for this parameter is written to the passdb backend and that value will
over-ride the parameter value present in the smb.conf file. Any error
present in the passdb backend account record must be editted using the
appropriate tool (pdbedit on the command-line, or any other locally
provided system tool.
Note that this option is only useful if Samba is set up
as a logon server.
An example of use is:
logon path = \\PROFILESERVER\PROFILE\%U
\\%N\%U\profile