Moving user's personal drives off Novell 3.12 and onto a Windows NT4 and 2003 domain

T

Techguy

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 26, 2001
Messages
2,990
We currently have a novell 3.12 server.. Yeah, it's old. We're phasing it out soon. Aside from a database server (which we've almost finished migrating to windows 2003) the novell server acted as a file server. There were 2 drives that the novell server mounts when you login. The F:\ drive is a public drive. We've replaced that with a snap server, and have set user permissions accordingly, and a simple login script can redirect where F: points, so there won't be any problems.

The real problem is the I:\ drive. The I:\ drive is different for each user. Only the user (and admin) have access to their I:\ drive. Currently on the novell server, when you create a new user, it creates a folder of the same name on the DATA volume, and assigns the proper permissions.

so we have a data structure that looks like this:
\NOVELL_SERVER\DATA\SRI\USERNAME
we have about 100 users.

Copying the SRI folder, which has all the I:\ drive data for all users, is not a problem. My question is how on earth would you go about recreating the proper shares, and network drive maps for this?

One problem I've noticed with windows 98 is say you create a share called SRI that points to the SRI folder on the new 2003 server. You can't map \\2003SERVER\SRI\USERNAME as a drive because the USERNAME is not a share, only SRI, the directory above it, is.

Windows XP seems to not care if you mount a sub-directory of a share as a drive.

The other part of my problem is, is there a way to script share permissions/security settings? If at all possible I'd like to not manually set permissions on 100 folders.

Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or recommendations on how to recreate this (or some other type of) personal network drive structure on a windows 2003 server that is part of an NT 4.0 domain?

Thanks,
Russell
 
If I'm understanding you correctly, you just need to setup a personal drive for everyone. It's a bit of work, since you will need to create all the subdirectories, then share each one to the user and admin group. As far as scripting it, I'm sure there must be something out there to do it, I've just never seen anything on that before.

Here is how I have the profile setup to mount a home directory on my 2000 AD setup:
usersetup.gif
 
so I have the following share:
\\2003SERVER\SRI\
and in SRI I have a folder called RTL (my user name)

If I set my home folder to map the I:\ as
\\2003SERVER\SRI\%USERNAME%

with XP:
my I:\ drive will be \\2003SERVER\SRI\RTL

with 98
my I:\ drive will be \\2003SERVER\SRI

Is there a way to make 98 map the %USERNAME% folder (in this case RTL) as a drive without making it a share?
If it's possible, I'd like to not have to create 100 shares for all 100 users.

And anyone else know if there is some way to script setting the permissions to a folder so that only Admins and %USERNAME% can hit their respective %USERNAME% folder?

Thanks,
Russell
 
you could script the permissions using the utility xcacls.exe from the windows 2000 server resource kit. as for the drive mappings, you can add some lines to their logon batch file that check to see if they are on a win9x machine using a command line os version check utility and then delete their current h: mapping and remap it with a net use command NET USE I: \\2003SERVER\SRI\%USERNAME%\
 
I ran into this once. If I remember correctly, and I think I do, Windows 98 doesn't allow you to map to a directory within a share. You could map to \sri\ and then have them click to there directory. But you can't map to \sri\username unless you make a specific share for it.

I know, it sucks, it's a windows 98 limitation, deep directory linking, or somethin glike that. I had a whole big bruhaha with a job I did because of it.
 
For Win98 I think you have to re-share each users individual home directory to have it map as "root" like with Novell's client32... not sure, as I have been lucky that all the places I have worked have had NT/2K/XP boxes as clients...

The book Windows 2000 Scripting Guide by Microsoft is pretty good if you are looking to learn how to automate that task; a VBScript could create all directories, shares, permissions, and move the data while you get your coffe. Programs like ScriptLogic are cool too, if you just don;t have the time to learn the code. Being an Administrator can be a very hectic job.. :)

Where I am at now we use GPO Folder Redirection; everyone's My Documents folder goes to their home directories.. 2K & XP Pro clients, works like a charm since most programs default to My Documents when you open or save. No more home drives.
 
thanks guys :->
I'll have to give those scripting tools a look.
I figured somewhere deep down that the folders withen a share can't be maped was a limitation of 98. But, it's gonig to be a while before all the company's stuff is XP.
Thanks again for the help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top