Renaming Users and Home Directories

[kimboaticus]

Hi All,

I have been working on setting up Hyena for our Helpdesk and thanks again for adding the Use Template button to the Profile tab in the current beta. That helped alot.

The issue I am having now though is when a helpdesk user needs to rename a user. Keep in mind that a helpdesk user doesnt have admin rights to the server. It took some fiddling but I was able to give Helpdesk users Full Control to a share containing the user home directories (the share is called Homes)and NTFS permissions to the Homes folder (they have everything except take Ownership), and also add them to the Power Users group on the local server. Set up this way, the Helpdesk user can create Home directories for users. Testing the rename function causes problems. They have no issue with the actual rename of the user in AD, but even though they are prompted if they want to change the folder and share to the new name and they click yes, it doesnt happen. What does happen is that the users Home share is removed, the folder cant be renamed giving a "Cannot rename file" error, and then the re-sharing of the folder fails with an "Unable to add share XXX. The system cant find the file specified" error. If I add the Helpdesk user to the local admins group of the server holding the Home shares, then it works fine.

I am wondering what method Hyena uses to rename the folder and share when doing the rename function. When you use the template to create Home folders, you are telling Hyena to use a specific Share Directory Local Mask and Share Directory Remote Mask. But when doing the rename, this info is not available to Hyena, so does it default to use the Administrative share perhaps? That would account for a Helpdesk users inability to rename the folders. If the helpdesk user connects to the server through windows explorer and renames a folder there it works fine. If they log into the console of the server, they can create and remove folders and shares in the Homes share, so the problem only occurrs through Hyena.

Anyone have any ideas on how to work around this?

Cheers!

[kstanush]

Re: Renaming Users and Home Directories

Yes, Hyena uses the admin share to do the rename, as this is all that it has to work with. Before removing the old (existing) share, Hyena gets the existing share's path, which Windows stores as a local drive path on the server. You can see this path by looking at the share's properties, for example:

C:\UserHomeDirs\username

Hyena will then use the path \\server\c$\userhomedirs\username as the directory to rename. This creates a problem when a user does not have access to the admin share.

I unfortunately don't know of a way around this, as there isn't any information that I know of to resolve this back into a remote directory path that the user would have access to. Plus, I've seen problems in the past with some versions of Windows where the rename was attempted through a share other than the admin share (or a network drive, not that we have any way of knowing if a mapped drive is to that share anyway)

[kimboaticus]

Re: Renaming Users and Home Directories

Hmmm... Thats what I thought. Just an idea, what if you used a template for the rename function, the same as when you setup a home directory brand new? Could you have a use template button in the rename folder dialog box perhaps? That way, Hyena could be told to go to a different share other than the Admin share. Im not sure why you would see issues renaming through a non admin share. Can you give me some specifics as to what problems you saw?

[kstanush]

Re: Renaming Users and Home Directories

I'm not sure right now how complicated this would be, but Hyena v6.7 just completed translations, so even if this feature were to be implemented, it could not be until the next release.

The problem that I ran into in the past (not sure which Windows version) could be duplicated by attempting it from the command line, although I think any rename from the command line using a unc name and share will fail:

rename \\computer\share\old_dir \\computer\share\new_dir

I can't say for sure right now if this will work and/or make it as a new feature.

[kimboaticus]

Re: Renaming Users and Home Directories

Cool. Thanks for considering it. Hopefully it wouldnt be too difficult to add later but if not, thanks anyway.