Mounting shares directory to required folder?

[MrPARRman]

Hi All,

 

I am looking for a solution on automatically creating a link directly to our users active directory home folder so that they are easily able to save their documents from applications.

 

At this time we have a 10.6.7 server using Workgroup manager and our clients are 10.7 - we have the clients set up to save locally (a request of the departments due to the size of the files they use) with their AD home drives mapping on the dock.

 

Our Home drives are structured like:

//Server/Year/Studentname

 

If you try to save through any applications you are unable to access the Studentname folder directly and are forced to navigate from //server which is impossible as we have over 150 accounts per folder. Is there some way to make the full home directly mount as a drive so that it can be easily saved to? Almost an exact replicate of how the dock shortcut works but able to be quickly accessed through all applications?

 

I am by far not very clued up on Macs and despite a tenacious effort on googling this problem, I cannot find any answer. I have found a post that looked promising but quickly went into a 50+ page discussion on scripts which went straight over my head.

 

Can this be done?

[SC92]

Do you use mobile accounts? I previously had this problem at a previous school but new school/mac setup with mobile accounts/home sync, and I have found a way around it. When each user logs in, get them to open up their AD share, and at the very top of the window where there's a little drive icon, drag that into the sidebar. Ok granted it's a bit of a pain to begin with but because of the mobile account/home sync setup, the user will only have to do this once and they can then select their AD share from the 'Save-as' drop down in applications. Works a treat here!

[Jewellsy]

If students log in with AD the mac should automatically map their home drives. You do however have to make the drive visible to students

[MrPARRman]

With mobile accounts, once you have dragged that over once does it follow the students between computers? The way I have told staff to show students is to open the My Documents folder from the dock, and then add the icon to the sidebar which works I would imagine like yours but does not follow students so needs to be done each time they use a new Mac.

 

At this time the AD home drive is mapping and appears on the dock and students are able to access all of there files - the problem arises when they are within applications and try to save. So they will be using Logic, choose File > Save As, and they cannot see there My Documents folder directly, only the root of the share and the only way to get into My Documents is to go into the share and navigate to there folder. This becomes problomatic as each year group has 150+ accounts within this base share.

 

To better describe my problem, I have a share:

//server/folder1/folder2/folder3

 

Folder 3 is the students AD Home drive and is mapping correctly on the dock. The student can click it and directly access all of there files in the same way as they do on a Windows computer. The issues arrises when they try to save from a application - they cannot access folder3 but are only given the option of choose the root //server share and are forced to manually navigate back into folder3 until they are able to save.

[SC92]

With mobile accounts, once you have dragged that over once does it follow the students between computers? The way I have told staff to show students is to open the My Documents folder from the dock, and then add the icon to the sidebar which works I would imagine like yours but does not follow students so needs to be done each time they use a new Mac.

 

Pretty much that ^ is all you need to do with mobile accounts/home sync set up. You can find the settings in WGM fairly easily. Everytime a user saves something to their then desktop on mac01, or drags their AD share into the sidebar on mac01, this syncs on login/logout and will be apparent on each mac they log in to thereafter.