ldp (LDAP distributed profile) will read a user-specific shell profile (.profile) from an LDAP directory server upon login, allowing users (including multiple people operating as root) to always have the same settings irrespective of which machine they are working on. ldp also operates correctly when logging in via SSH via public key auth. Used properly, any user logging on as root to a machine, can have her customized .profile loaded upon login instead of having to “share” a ~root/.profile or similar. That for me, is the end of having to put up with colleagues who prefer emacs mode in a bash. ;-) I’ve submitted an initial announcement and a release of my distributed .profile from LDAP idea to freshmeat.net. I’ve put up quite an extensive document about ldp on my wiki (the home of ldp); do have a look & comment on it, please. There are still some things pending: decent man pages, an import utility and perhaps profile storage in the user’s real $HOME instead of in a spool directory. Anothing thing pending is my first freshmeat submission: it is still in the queue… In any case, even though the whole thing is rather simple, I’m quite pleased with the result of ldp. I’ve been testing it from a number of different machines, and my life has changed for the better! :-)