Mac OS X - AD Integration

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Hi guys,

 

We are desperately hoping that someone will be able to help us! We have recently upgraded the OS X Server we have and our Mac clients to 10.9, and at the same time integrated them with AD. For the most part things have worked well, you can login as your AD user and the home folder (that resides on the OS X Server) is properly accessible. We have student home folders saved on Mac and shared via AFP, this is mapped through AD home folder path, and then the user preferences come from Open Directory.

 

However we continue to have niggly problems and they are becoming increasingly disruptive. For instance, today the OS X Server randomly decided to stop working and all classes could no longer login or save. We had to restart for things to come back to normal. This happens every month or so.

 

Increasingly the Mac clients will start to run incredibly slow, and you cannot launch applications or open documents almost as if the connection to the server has been dropped. After a few minutes, the connection will re-establish. The server is more than powerful enough to handle the number of requests it is getting though, so I don't know why it would stop. There are a bunch of errors in the console on the server but I'm not exactly sure what they are all about.

 

There is also an issue with Logic Pro it will be working fine, students will save work and then when they come back to it the next day the file isn't saved completely and cannot be opened. :/

 

We were hoping there may be someone in the North West of England who is in a similar (allbeit more successful) situation and would be able to let us visit or pass on some advice and guidance!

 

Please please please someone help us, we may be able to offer help in other areas in exchange!!

 

 

Thanks,

 

Joel

[Mustang]

If they can't open apps when the server goes down it sounds like your using network homes and not local as you stated. Network homes put a lot of strain on the network.

 

Where in the North West are you based??

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Sorry - to clarify the users have network home folders that come from the active directory home folder path. the folder the home folder sits on on is the Mac server and it is shared via AFP.

 

We would prefer local as I know there is a lot of strain, but this would then confine the kids to one iMac I know we could map the drive and they could save files in there but many would just save on local machine and not realise until it's too late.

 

 

We are based in Wigan but obviously willing to travel if it will help us!

 

Thanks for your reply.

Edited January 8, 2014 by HereIGoAgain2601