[mdlug] Need advice on network authentication design

[Jeff Hanson]

Up till now my network has been peer-peer with separate user accounts
since I didn't have a server.  I'm now setting up a server and need a
directory service and authentication mechanism.  LDAP seems to be the
typical solution but I'm having trouble figuring out what to do with
transient client systems like my laptop which can be used offline for
up to a two week duration.  So far I've found two options - caching
credentials for a ridiculous length of time
(http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/laptopldap.html) or setting up a slave
LDAP server on the laptop (and other transient systems) using slurpd
or syncrepl.  Caching seems ugly to me but I can see that having a
bunch of slaves could be problematic also.  Anyone have experience
with these issues?