Macbook wifi logon issues

[Carrot63]

Hi

We have a suite of Macs linked with a Mac server and AD. On the whole everything works fine when physically connected to the lan however if you want to use a macbook or an imac on wifi they are unable to logon unless you create the user a mobile account or localadmin account first. I am sure I must be doing something stupid but I have read somewhere that others have this problem and it is that the Macs do not initialise the wifi until after the logon, which obviously would be no use at all. We use our AD home directory as the home folder on the mac rather than a local home folder or storing it on the Mac server.

Has anyone had this problem and if so how have they got round it?

 

Thanks

[davidacland]

Hi,

 

The wifi issue will depend on the type of authentication you are using. If its WPA/WPA2 Enterprise then you need to use certificate based authentication setup by a configuration profile.

 

Regarding home folders, for wifi / laptop Macs I really would recommend local home folders, if you untick the "force local home directory on startup disk" in directory utility and the Mac is on wifi you will have a lot of stability problems.

 

Hope this helps.

 

David Acland - Amsys

[Carrot63]

Hi

 

Yes we are using WPA2 enterprise authentication. How would I setup a configuration profile for this and how do I apply it?

 

Thanks for your advice

[davidacland]

You need to create it using your MDM server (profile manager, Casper or something similar). There are two parts to the profile, the first is getting a certificate from Active Directory (How to request a certificate from a Microsoft Certificate Authority using DCE/RPC and the Active Directory Certificate profile payload - Apple Support), then in the same profile, under wifi, select WPA enterprise authentication, set it to be used at the login window and to use the AD certificate you created.

 

Unfortunately its a bit of a tricky thing to get going and needs input from your certificate administrator, AD admin and wifi admin as it will depend on how each of these elements have been configured.