Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators

Planning a Workgroup
Managing Users Across Multiple Systems
Chapter 2 103
Some sites have an automated service that assigns uids that are
unique site-wide. If your site offers such a service, use it; otherwise,
you will have to devise your own method of checking that the uid you
assign each new login is unique across all the systems the user will
have access to.
• Distributing mail directories from a central point allows you to set
up a mail hub for the group, simplifying mail maintenance.
This is often a good idea. Users will need accounts, with their
“global” uid’s, on the mail server, whether or not they log into it. See
“Networking Topographies” on page 273 for more information.
• Distributing home directories from the file server simplifies backup
and allows each user to log in on any workstation in the workgroup
(see “Should You Share Users’ Home and Mail Directories?” on
page 103).
This may or may not be desirable, depending on such factors as your
hardware budget, maintenance budget (if you pay for backup
services), patterns of use, and site or department security policies.
If you plan to centralize users’ home directories in this way, you
should make sure each user has at least a minimal home
environment on his or her local disk, so that they can log in and do at
least some work even if the file server is down.
One way to do this is to create the user’s home directory on the local
disk first, then import the “real” home directory from the server.
When the server is up, only the “real” (imported) directory will be
visible; when the server is down, the directory on the local disk will
once again become visible and the user will still be able to log in.
Should You Share Users’ Home and Mail Directories?
Although the V.4 paradigm defines them as private, there are arguments
for sharing /home and /var/mail:
• backup
Even if you instruct your users not to leave important data in their
home directories, or in their mail boxes, they will probably do it
anyway, so these directories will need to be backed up each day. It is
much easier to back them up from one central location than to back
up each workstation individually.