Managing 10.6 & 10.7 clients with a Snow Leopard server

[SC92]

Hi all,

I have a gut feeling that I may be asking a few questions in this section in the very near future, so bare with me!

Yes, I did just ask that question! Due to unforseen circumstances, I just need a little guidance and want to know realistically if it can be done successfully or not. Here's the tricky part though - if this goes ahead we will have 17 Snow Leopard clients and 8 Lion clients for the short term, until we have time to fully upgrade to Lion Server, or at least purchase the remaining Lion licenses to upgrade Snow Leopard. I'm at the stage of uploading the Lion image to our DS Server, so the next thing i'm going to try and do is set up some managed prefs for Lion. However, I presume I will have to download the 10.7 admin tools and delete the existing 10.6 WGM settings, Server admin etc? Will 10.7 server admin tools pick up Lion and Snow Leopard clients? Or do I just continue to manage the Lion clients from our existing (fully functional) 10.6 server admin tools, and just ignore the new features that Lion comes with?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[3s-gtech]

10.7 admin tools won't even install on Snow Leopard. You can't manage 10.7 clients from 10.6 (at least, not with the admin tools). They won't appear in the Workgroup Manager. You can hack SUS to make that work though.

[HodgeHi]

You can install the 10.7 server tools on a 10.7 client and connect to the 10.6 server using them. However, due to some changes in the tools you may run across some issues. Whether you can manage 10.7 clients through WGM though I'm not sure. I've not gone down the Lion route yet. I did try to use a mobile account on a client with an AD user and a 10.6.8 server. It worked but I had constant permission errors. This may have been down to the migration from a macbook to the iMac though. My advice would be to test it as you seem to be looking to do.

I wouldn't touch the 10.6 WGM settings. They shouldn't matter.

[jubbi]

We have a 10.6.8 server and just took delivery of some 10.7 imacs. After applying the .local fix at http://www.centrify.com/downloads/pu...workaround.pdf I was able to join them to the domains (after installing 10.7.2), but the clients will not show up in WGM. Preferences set over users who log on apply to the machine properly, but you cannot add them to computer groups. I really dont want to risk killing the server with a Lion

On a side note, has anyone tried 10.7.3 on .local domains yet? Is joining and logging on any faster?

[HodgeHi]

10.7.3 has a fix for using .local domains. I would probably take a back up of your server/clients and test.

[SC92]

Can confirm the 10.7.3 patch is working on .local domains. WGM can't see the clients and Im unable to add them to any groups, but oddly, the preferences set in WGM are still active on the Lion clients. Not complaining for now, it seems to be working!

[jubbi]

Thanks guys. I'm going to have to bite the bullet at one of my schools and stick lion server on. I've phoned apple care about the upgrade, but haven't heard anything back as to what I need to buy to do it though. Some people claim I just need to run the Lion upgrade, and others say I have to buy it and the server add-on for it to work. Even the official upgrade/migration doc from apple is annoyingly vague on what needs to be done.

[iSteve]

We have successfully managed a 10.7 client from a 10.6.8 server. We added it in to WGM, and it "just worked".

[SC92]

and it "just worked".

Technical term there But likewise, did the same for us!

[mr_moonface]

Technical term there But likewise, did the same for us!

Hi this is my first post on this site, I lurk a lot!

Just wanted to confirm this works great for our School, I find the 10.7.2 clients take slightly longer to reach the desktop than 10.6 - but we're talking seconds.

They also carry across all our preferences from 10.6.8 Server WGM - I personally don't see much point in upgrading server unless integrating lots of iOS devices.

My main gripe is an aesthetic one, question marks in the docks on the 10.6 machines in place of launchpad and mission control. (I choose to manage docks by groups rather than Macs, and want to make sure launchpad stays in place, I'm not a fan but it's great for our less experienced users) - There's easy fixes for this but there is always something more important to do!

The only issues I've seen are keychain errors related to iCloud, but these are rare, like the odd 1 in 200 users and creating a new keychain is an easy fix.

[3s-gtech]

Those of you saying you can manage 10.7 clients from 10.6 - how are you doing it then? Managing the users is one thing, our MCX policies apply to users on 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 fine. It's the computer policies that won't apply, as the Macs don't show up in Workgroup Manager (so you can't manage things like SUS etc through MCX). So technically, our Lion Macs aren't managed, just the users on them. If you've managed it though - pray tell!

On that, tried manually adding Lion clients and Lion updates to SUS on a 10.6.8 server. Server is pulling the updates down, clients are looking at server. They always report that they're up to date though, even when they're not (eg I can see 10.7.3 in the list, but the clients won't grab it). Anyone got this working?

[mr_moonface]

Those of you saying you can manage 10.7 clients from 10.6 - how are you doing it then? Managing the users is one thing, our MCX policies apply to users on 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 fine. It's the computer policies that won't apply, as the Macs don't show up in Workgroup Manager (so you can't manage things like SUS etc through MCX). So technically, our Lion Macs aren't managed, just the users on them. If you've managed it though - pray tell!

On that, tried manually adding Lion clients and Lion updates to SUS on a 10.6.8 server. Server is pulling the updates down, clients are looking at server. They always report that they're up to date though, even when they're not (eg I can see 10.7.3 in the list, but the clients won't grab it). Anyone got this working?

We upgraded our 10.6 clients to 10.7 using the app store package pushed out through ARD. All the computer policies set in WGM apply as normal - I manually added each one to WGM whilst on 10.6. When we upgraded to 10.7 they remained and so did the policies (after re-boot). I haven't tried removing a Mac from WGM and re-adding as a clean lion install, I have one that needs a replacement HDD so I will remove this and re-add as a test after our half-term and report back, I was planning on building a new image anyway.

In all honesty I haven't experienced software update through the server on our 10.7 Macs, I've always downloaded the pkgs and pushed them through ARD (don't ask, the mac clients were a mess when I took over my current position, nothing was set up correctly, they didn't even have computer groups!)

Just to add I would be hesitant to install 10.7.3 through software update at the moment as people have been experiencing problems as opposed to the combo update. ( I imagine this has been sorted now )

[Arthur]

I imagine this has been sorted now

It has. Software Update downloads the Combo Update now.

[3s-gtech]

We upgraded our 10.6 clients to 10.7 using the app store package pushed out through ARD. All the computer policies set in WGM apply as normal - I manually added each one to WGM whilst on 10.6. When we upgraded to 10.7 they remained and so did the policies (after re-boot).)

That's very interesting, thanks. All of my Lion clients are new machines, no upgrades here so they're just not available in WGM. It's not really a problem, save for the fact that I can't get SUS to work.

[chiptech]

That's very interesting, thanks. All of my Lion clients are new machines, no upgrades here so they're just not available in WGM. It's not really a problem, save for the fact that I can't get SUS to work.

I see it's been a while since anyone posted on this thread, so maybe you have found your answer(s.) I have new 10.7.4 and 10.7.4 clients bound both to AD and OD and have been able to add 10.7 clients to 10.6 server WGM by un-binding my computer, then go to WGM and add the clients.