need help with NFS and user authentication

[Craig White]

On Sat, 2009-02-28 at 16:21 -0700, Alex Dean wrote: 
> I have set up an Ubuntu file server on my home network.  I have 2 OSX  
> workstations (mine and my wife's), and an Ubuntu laptop.  We each have  
> an account on each computer.  I'm trying to figure out how to allow my  
> user account on any computer to mount my home directory on the file  
> server, and to allow my wife's account on any computer mount her home  
> directory on the file server.
> 
> I don't want to move our home directories entirely onto the  
> fileserver.  Primarily we want to continue using the local machines as  
> we always have.  We just want to add the ability to easily store files  
> on the network and have them accessible from any other machine.
> 
> I have had no problems creating exports on the file server, and I've  
> had no problems mounting those exports from the client machines.  The  
> problems thusfar have been uid mismatches.  I could probably change  
> uids everywhere so they all match on all machines, but this seems 1.  
> klunky and 2. really insecure.
> 
> I think there are ways to solve this kind of problem with Kerberos or  
> LDAP, but those are technologies I know very little about.  If someone  
> could point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.  How  
> would you solve this problem?  I'm happy to research and learn what I  
> need to learn, but I find I'm having a hard time even getting started.
----
I like LDAP but most would probably consider this overkill for a home
network.

Apple starts numbering uid's at 500 (first user) and increments each new
user from there. Ubuntu starts numbering users at 1000.

The following link explains how you can change the uid #'s on the Macs
to conform - this solved my particular problem on a network where some
Macintosh users saving files on a Windows server would cause issues but
the same principal applies. There are instructions for both Tiger and
Leopard.

http://www.makemacwork.com/office-2004-wont-save-to-server.htm

Craig