Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories

moondog-icsi — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:13:30 GMT

We assign all our users a Linux and a Windows account when they arrive, which have the same username, but each set of systems has their own password schemes. The vast vast majority of our users are on Linux, and their current home directories are mounted on an NFS mount. If they logged into a Windows machine, that same home directory would appear as a network drive, authenticated against their Windows account via CIFS (which can be a different password than the Linux account).

When the account is created, the Linux account is created first, and the account creation script also creates the home directory (on a Solaris machine, but I'll keep saying Linux for brevity). The script runs as root, copies in a template structure, then does some chown/chmod stuff to make it owned by the new user. Then we create the Windows account, but 90% of our users never log into Windows to see it there. The few users who only use Windows (maybe 10, tops, out of 100+ accounts) almost never login to Linux, and a handful use both. Our arrangement lets them have the same home directory no matter which type of system they log into, and regardless if their passwords on both systems match.

From what I can tell with the way NetApp handles home directories, the presumption is that home directories will always be a Windows-based scheme. It seems like -- if I understand this correctly -- the NFS mount for the home directory will also require authenticating with the Windows account, is this correct? It also seems like we won't be able to script this, and the account will have to login to a Windows system to have their home directory created if we went this route. Do I have these correct?

Re: Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories

paul_stejskal — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:22:12 GMT

Even though this article is geared toward performance, I feel like it helps answer your question: https://kb.netapp.com/Advice_and_Troubleshooting/Data_Storage_Software/ONTAP_OS/How_do_Dynamic_Home_Directories_improve_performance

DHD is a CIFS only feature. The home directory has to be accessed through CIFS not NFS for it to work. That's the simple answer.

Let me know if this helps. If there are any doubts or clarifications needed, please let us know so we can explain further.

Re: Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories

moondog-icsi — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 20:56:54 GMT

I guess the biggest question: is it just not possible to use NFS at all?

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Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories

Re: Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories

Re: Help me understand NetApp dynamic home directories