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tgray96

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 13, 2010
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Ok so i talked about ad a while back, anyway i mentioned that my school uses novell, ok, so every user has a home folder on a hard drive on the server so ( filepath ie: G\Home\Class2015\15Gray is there anyway for each user in ad to have this also?
 
Sure, there are several ways to accomplish this. Either a login scripts ( net use G: \\server\share\folder ) or GPPs.

Set up an OU and play with it.
 
I will take a stab at this... I believe you would apply a GPO in AD to the user accounts to redirect their My Documents folder to a share on your server.

 
i dont want to redirect the whole folder as of now, and uh, i am kind of new to this whole thing
 
i dont mean to sound like a total n00b, but uh how do i apply a gpo or login script?
 
tgray96 said:
i dont mean to sound like a total n00b, but uh how do i apply a gpo or login script?
Click to expand...
Open up Group Policy Management Console, navigate to the OU where the users are. Then right click, create a GPO in this domain. Name it, right click and select Edit. Navigate to User Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Scripts. Open up Logon script. Click show files...Right click in this folder, create text document, rename it to <something>.bat ( replace <something> with a valid file name ). Edit it. In this file, add the following net use G: \\<server>\<share>\<folder>. Save file, go back to the Logon Properties. Click Add..., browse, select the file you created.

This GPO will apply to all users below the OU.
 
tgray96 said:
ok will this let each user access ONLY their folder?
Click to expand...
No. That needs to be handled by the file server's security. All my post will do is set up a network share on the G drive pointing to the file server.
 
tgray96 said:
??? I am confused... what do i need running on the server?
Click to expand...
File sharing. Then, on the folders/files on the servers, you need to restrict permissions to whatever you need. So in this case, on each user folder you would remove domain users from the DACL and add the specific user and grant full access.

This functionality is present on just about any type of file server you might name ( linux, windows, netware ).
 
ok got that... now how do i access it from the domain logged on machine?
 
tgray96 said:
ok got that... now how do i access it from the domain logged on machine?
Click to expand...
Do this so I have a better idea about what we're looking at. Give me the entire local file path of the folders you want to share, and post the login script you created.
 
you can't map a network path to the C: drive, since Windows uses the C: drive. You need to pick a drive letter than is not in use. It's usually recommended to start towards the end of the alphabet, since USB drives, card readers and the like always take up the earlier letters when plugged in to a system, and I've seen issues when a network share is mapped to, say, the E: drive.

Also, with that bat, all users will get the same home folder.

It needs to be something along the lines of:
Code: 
net use T: \\server\users\%username%

you also need a space between the drive letter and the server/folder path
 
ok how do i change the Drive letter? and how do i add it specifially for each user? or do i add %username%
 
tgray96 said:
ok how do i change the Drive letter? and how do i add it specifially for each user? or do i add %username%
Click to expand...

ok... in the BAT file you created for a startup script.

You should have a command like:

Code: 
net use T: \\server\users\%username%

Now in this... T: is the drive letter you want the user to be shown under My Computer. You can change it to Z:, X:, Y:, etc. As long as the drive letter you put in the BAT file isn't in use.

to add it for each user... basically, %username% is a variable. This is, essentially, the user's name.

So, for instance, you have a user name "guest"
the above login script will map his T: drive to the folder \\server\users\guest

Let's say your username is tgray.
The above login script will map your T: drive to the folder \\server\users\tgray

So %username% is the actual username, but for the script's sake, it's a variable based on the user logging in.

Hopefully this makes sense... I'm not always good at explaining things.
 
Yeah I appeciate your help.... and patience, I Have a problem, i am only running i main drive on my server, although its 4 drives, its setup as 1 container, anyway, i am kinda in a bit of a problem, i cant change the servers drive name or the clients.... :( Any Ideas?
 
wait wait wait... what are you trying to do? You don't change the drive letter on the server itself.

I guess I'm kind of confused as to what you were attempting to do.
 
maybe I know where you're confused; about the path and drive letters in the start-up script?

net use T: \\server\user\%username%

ok.. T: is the drive letter the user will see as a mapped network drive on the workstation they log in to. This can be changed to any drive letter that is not in use on that local machine (disregard the server at this point).

\\server\user\%username%

This is the UNC path to the share where the user's "home folder" exists.
By UNC path, it's what you would see when you browse the server's shares from a workstation.
ie, on a workstation you would go to Start -> Run -> \\server\user and it would bring up an Explorer window with all the users' folders.

Now on the server side of things...

locally, on the server, you shared out C:\Data\ and you have a folder called users in there.
You don't change anything with that, except NTFS permissions if necessary.
 
do i need to change anything in the active directory user control panel for each user?
 
tgray96 said:
do i need to change anything in the active directory user control panel for each user?
Click to expand...

You will need to add the script to the appropriate area on the Profile tab in AD

From http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/13273.html ...

Windows 2003

* Create the login script

1. At the Domain Controller (i.e. the computer you use to add new users to the domain), use Windows Explorer (or My Computer) to locate C:\Winnt\SYSvol\sysvol\[domain].com\scripts where [domain] is the name of the domain that the workstations log in to.
2. On the File menu, select New|Text Document.
3. Double-click the 'New Text Document' icon to open it in Notepad.
4. Enter the required commands.
5. On the 'File' menu, click 'Save As'. In the 'Save As' dialog box, change 'Save as type' to 'All Files' and save the file with the name login.bat.
6. Close Notepad and Windows Explorer (or My Computer).

* Assign the login script

1. At the taskbar, click Start|Settings|Control Panel.
2. In the 'Control Panel' window, double-click 'Administrative Tools'.
3. In the 'Administrative Tools' window, double-click 'Active Directory Users and Computers'.
4. In the 'Active Directory Users and Computers' window, click the Users folder in the Tree pane.
5. In the Name list, right-click the name of a user that needs to have the login script assigned to them. In the menu that is displayed, select 'Properties'.
6. In the '[user] Properties' dialog box (where [user] is the name of the user you right-clicked), click the Profile tab. In the 'Logon script' text box, type 'login.bat'. Click 'OK'.
7. Now repeat this procedure for each user to whom you want to assign the login script.

The next time those users log in, the login script will run on their computers.
Click to expand...



 
tgray96 said:
do i need to change anything in the active directory user control panel for each user?
Click to expand...

if you make it a GPO, as XOR != OR stated above, no, you would not need to modify each user account in AD.

otherwise, if you did not want to make it a GPO, then you could do as ciggwin stated.

alternatively, you can also set the user's home folder within their AD account, using Active Directory Users and Computers.

if you go to the Profile tab, the bottom of the window, there are 2 bulleted items; you can select the lower one, I believe it is, and accomplish the same thing.
 
Last edited:
ok cleared everything out, as i did use the GPO, and i dont have a T: drive showing up on my client after login?
 
I think at this point you need to pick one thing that you want to do... and we can try and help get you through it. But at this point, what do you want to do?

Map a shared drive? Or map a user drive that can only be accessed by that specific user?
How do you want to do it? Logon script or GPO?

 
i didnt know if it had anything to do with it or not... just adding more info...
 
ok... something was forgotten.

When connecting a network share to a local drive via this bat file the folder/share needs to already exist.

the net use command does not create the folder, if it doesn't already exist.
so create the user's folder as their username, and assign them full permissions to access the folder.
 
i already have the file
Server: C:\3759\Users\<user files here>
But does the .bat file need to be changed to go to this directory?
 
ok... need clarification...

you want the user's home folders to exist in the C:\3759\Users\ folder on your server, correct?
and you want each user to have their own personal folder within the C:\3759\Users\ folder, correct?

if this is the case, then:
each user will need their own sub-folder within the C:\3759\Users\ folder.
ie, user "guest" will get the folder C:\3759\Users\guest\
user tgray will get C:\3759\Users\tgray

then, when the logon bat file runs, T: will get mapped to \\server\users\%username%
in the case of guest, T: gets mapped to \\server\users\guest
in the case of tgray, T: gets mapped to \\server\users\tgray
 
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