This is more annoying than anything else: a bug in the more general sense of the word. The samba RPM tries to create a home directory /home/samba. On my work computer, directories under /home are automounted from an NFS server. An attempt to create a directory under /home fails, causing the installation of samba to fail. /home/samba contains no files, and is only referenced in the configuration file /etc/smb.conf as a possible location for public files. This section of the configuration file is `commented out' by default. Work-around: Stop the automounter, install samba, delete directory /home/samba and start up the automounter again. Issues: 1. Should an RPM write to /home? This would assume /home is local, which may not be the case. 2. Is /home/samba the correct place for a collection of public files? How about /var/lib/samba or /var/local/lib/samba? Cheers, Paul.
This is sometimes a problem with installing the apache, ftp, and samba packages on a running network. Several options are 1. Like you said, unmount /home, install, and remount /home. 2. create a /etc/rpmrc file and add line netsharedpath: /home This should allow the package to continue to install despite /home permission problems. 3. Divide users into groups and have home divided into these groups. Then only mount he specific group home directories on machines. This leaves /home open to do whatever on a machine to machine basis. Number 2 is a good choice and you should see if that works for you.