Mac server / clients connection to Internet

[SteveB_NI]

I'm hoping someone can help me here - I've inherited a primarily windows network, with the exception of 1 Mac suite + 1 Mac server to connect with windows server active directory.

 

I have replaced my censornet internet filtering box & also as a result changed the IP address for the new system. This picked up ok in Windows by changing the proxy settings via GPO & everything ok, but I'm having serious problems now with our Mac suite (running OS X & the server running OS X 10.8.6)

 

The mac suites will now not log in. Once I plugged the old Censornet box back in & it was assigned the old IP I was able to log into the mac suite no problems whatsoever. Unplug it again & it's straight away unable to log in again.

 

Any ideas where I could go to start looking for the cause of this? I've changed the settings on the mac server to allow it to log in ok with the new Censornet box etc, but it doesn't seem to be helping the mac clients.

[davidacland]

I'm not sure what role the Mac server is playing in the setup. Are the Macs joined directly to AD or are they using OD on the Mac server?

 

It sounds like a networking issue, particularly as you mention that plugging in the old box again lets the Macs login. The first step on a Mac client will be to test if you can reach the domain controller. You can use "ping domain.controller.address" in the Terminal on an OS X client to see if the DC is reachable.

 

On the Mac server, depending on the services its running they can be a lot more fragile than Windows servers, particularly regarding IP address changes. If it is configured with a standard school setup, it is probably running Open Directory and either Workgroup Manager or Profile Manager. The Open Directory service is particularly sensitive to IP changes, name changes, DNS record changes etc so it may be broken if these have been edited.

 

Depending on the overall issue there could be a huge number of troubleshooting steps to go through. You might want to consider getting some Mac experienced help in if it is causing big problems for your users.

 

David Acland - Amsys