Member Avatar for mcoliver88

Hey All

What is the equivilant of romaing profiles in windows server for Unix/Linux?

Or how would i go about storing user accounts in a centralise location on the network so regardless of what machine users log onto on the network, they have the same desktop experiance?

Thanks

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rubberman

Dani AI

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Short answer: there is no single “roaming profiles” switch on Unix/Linux — you build the same behaviour from a few cooperating pieces. As asked, and as pointed out, the identity store (LDAP/AD/Directory Server) is the foundation; add network home storage and client-side integration to get a consistent desktop wherever a user logs in.

Typical, practical stack to achieve a roaming-like experience:

  • centralized identity (OpenLDAP, Active Directory, or FreeIPA) so every host sees the same UIDs/GIDs and account attributes;
  • authentication/SSO with Kerberos (or AD-integrated auth);
  • client NSS/PAM integration via SSSD or nss-pam-ldapd so getent passwd and id resolve centrally;
  • network-mounted home directories exported by NFSv4 or Samba and mounted with autofs (or systemd.automount) so homes appear on login;
  • pam_mkhomedir (or equivalent) to create homes on first login.

Operational notes and gotchas:

  • UID/GID consistency is critical — mismatched IDs break ownership. Assign IDs centrally or use id mapping when using AD/Samba.
  • Network homes expose desktop config, but some desktop state (dconf, caches, lockfiles) does not tolerate being on a slow share — test apps and consider local caches for large or latency-sensitive state.
  • Offline login requires client-side caching (SSSD can help); NFS servers become single points of failure unless made HA.
  • Beware file locking and ACL semantics; prefer NFSv4 for modern locking/ACL support.

Quick troubleshooting checklist:

  • confirm identity resolution: getent passwd username and id username;
  • check mounts: mount and ls -ld /home/username;
  • check auth logs and SSSD logs (/var/log/sssd/ or system auth logs);
  • verify Kerberos with klist if applicable.

If starting fresh, consider FreeIPA for an integrated LDAP+Kerberos+CA solution; if you already have AD, join Linux clients using SSSD/realmd or winbind.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

Most sites will use OpenLDAP for this. FWIW, Windows' Directory Server is based upon it, and they can be made to work together if necessary, for a site-wide single sign-on capability, even with a mix of Windows and Linux machines. My organization does that. I can install a RedHat or other Linux system and use my normal company login credentials to log onto the Linux system.

Member Avatar for rubberman

Directory Server -> Active Directory... :-)

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