Domain log on?

[alethiophile]

At my school, there is a network of computers such that from any one computer, even one that you haven't been on before, you can log on as your own account. Is there a way to do this on Debian? Or even on Linux in general?

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Yes, its possible in Debian or any other Linux distribution.

The Network Information Service (NIS) is implemented under most Unix variants, Linux included. NIS helps to make user administration much easier by propagating user account information to all systems across the network. This means that with Linux you need create only one account per user, and the user can then use this account to logon to virtually any Linux computer on your network. The ability to logon to a computer is still configured locally on each system, and it is therefore quite easy to prevent users from logging on to restricted systems. This single account also means that the user only has a single password to remember, and the administrator only has to worry about one account for each user. NIS makes it practical to administer a large network of computers because without NIS an administrator would have to manually propagate account information across the entire network.

There are a lot of other ways to do this. Check here for more details.

[alethiophile]

Thanks for that. I'll need to look at that. What about network drives? I know how to mount drives, but how do you get an entry in /dev for a network drive? Also, is there a way to automount a (network) drive on login of a specific user? (Oops, that was dumb, .bashrc.)

[devils casper]

Check what your Network Administrator is using for Data sharing. Samba or cfs? You must have root privileges to mount partitions.