New Mac and A Windows Domain

[Grommit]

HI

The Music Department has just purchased 2 brand new I-Macs.

We are running a Server 2003 Windows Domain.. With Ranger as security.

What and how is the easist and best way to add these MACs to the Domain and to have the user shares ?



Can Ranger work on Apples ?

[kingswood]

The *easiest* way to add the Apple machines to your 2003 network is to simply "bind" them to the AD directory using the "Directory Access" tool found on each system in Applications > Utilities. If you need specific help on how to do that let me know or just ask and I'm sure people will help.

This isn't the *best* way to make them members of the AD domain, since you can't lock the systems down this way (group policy doesn't apply to Apple systems). You could run an XServe or some other OS X Server system, but for two systems only I would stick for now with just binding them to the AD domain and letting users authenticate and grab their share when they log in.

If by "share" you mean home directory then make sure digital signing in SMB is turned off on your AD server and all should be fine.

Like I said, if you need more help just squeel!

Paul

[phill_g]

For just two machines, I would not bind them to AD, just create a generic log in and then connect to their shares from the GO menu in the finder. This way you can limit rthe local user, so they cannot use other apps (although Macs are excellent at restricting software installs by their native UNIX core). We found binding to AD using Mac OS X 10.4 creates a number of rogue files on the network.

We now use ADMITMAC on a school network of both PCs and Macs, with an XSERVE for locking systems down to pupils - which works well and is cost effective if you use more than 20 macs.

[GrumbleDook]

On Robert Moir's blog there are some instructions about creating a standard user template so that when someone logs on the first time it picks up a sort of default profile ... set it up the way you want and hope people don't change things to much ...