Samba domain clients take too long to log in

[rolandpish]

Hi there,
I have a Samba+LDAP Debian box as a primary domain controller.
I configured the server in order to support roaming profiles.

Everything is working perfectly. Roaming profiles are loaded and
saved correctly from the server for every user on the domain.
The big problem is this: after typing username and password from
a Windows XP client computer, it starts reading the profile from the
samba server; it says: loading settings, then it says: applying settings,
then it becomes stalled, and after about 2 minutes the computer starts
to load the desktop.

I have these packages installed: dhcp3-server, bind9, openldap (and required packages as libnss-ldap, libpam-ldap, etc) and samba server.
Do I need something else (a package or configuration) in order to
avoid this?
Why do clients last too much before the Windows desktop is ready to use?

I would really appreciate your help because I have days fighting with this and I have mad users at me and I don't know what to do.

Best Regards

Just in case, this is my smb.conf:

# /etc/samba/smb.conf
# samba configuration file

[global]
workgroup = linuxnet
netbios name = smbserver
server string = Samba PDC Version %v
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192

os level = 65
preferred master = yes
local master = yes
domain master = yes
domain logons = yes

security = user
guest ok = no
encrypt passwords = yes
null passwords = no
hosts allow = 127.0.0.1 192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0
# NOTE: I had to disable wins support because clients weren't able
# to join the domain. Once I disabled wins support clients joined the
# domain succesfully
#name resolve order = wins lmhosts host bcast
#wins support = yes
#dns proxy = no

time server = yes

log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
log level = 2
max log size = 50
hide unreadable = yes
hide dot files = yes

# LDAP
passdb backend = ldapsam:ldap://127.0.0.1
ldap suffix = dc=linuxnet
ldap machine suffix = ou=machines
ldap user suffix = ou=users
ldap group suffix = ou=groups
ldap admin dn = cn=admin,dc=linuxnet
ldap delete dn = no
enable privileges = yes
ldap password sync = yes

# roaming profiles
logon home = \\%L\%U\.profile
logon drive = H:
logon path = \\%L\profiles\%U
logon script = netlogon.bat OR %U.bat

add machine script = /usr/sbin/smbldap-useradd -w "%u"

#=== SAMBA SHARES ===

[netlogon]
path = /home/samba/netlogon
guest ok = no
read only = yes
browseable = no

[homes]
path = /home/users/%U
comment = HOME Folders
browseable = no
writeable = yes
valid users = %S
read only = no
guest ok = no
inherit permissions = yes

[profiles]
path = /home/samba/profiles
read only = no
writeable = yes
browseable = no
guest ok = no
hide files = /desktop.ini/ntuser.ini/NTUSER.*/
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700
csc policy = disable
profile acls = yes

[patrickbeyer]

Hi I'm also very new in the Samba game, I have found a similar problem to yours, I apologise if you have already done this, but this might help you.

Firstly check the size of the profile, if it is to large then it will slow the logon down tremendously, I have seen profiles as big as 3gig. Everytime you logon and off the whole thing gets copied back and forth, making logons take ages.

END OF MY SOLUTION

I'm also interested in your profiles setup on the server side, because I'm really struggling with custom individual profiles at the moment. How are you implementing roaming profiles? and are you implementing custom policies? are you implementing individual profiles for each user?

Thanks
Pat

[apoorv_khurasia]

From what you have written I could not find a problem with the server. I think this has everything to do with your profile size. You need a faster network to support larger profile sizes. You can limit the profile size space to say 30kb or upgrade your network infrastructure.

[Roxoff]

There is a little bit of stuff you can do with the policy manager to restrict what gets put in the users profile - by default with Samba, it'll be storing their personal registry, desktop and one or two other bits. Probably the quickest way to speed this up is to get your users to delete any junk off their desktops and stop them from storing files there - encourage them to write them to the server in their home directory.