Eudora931 Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 (edited) Hi All, I'm a newbie Network manager in a school that is pre dominantly macs ... All standalone . Cc4 running on 2008 r2. Standalone boards. Only the suite and around 30 desktops being services by cc4. What I would like to know - please - can I run a Windows server alongside a Mac X server . Where the Windows server has the dhcp and the printer and authenticated users . File sharing would only be applicable to admin office (who also want to use iMacs) as rest of school use google drive ... Want to use the X server to manage the macs really and maybe setup file sharing ... Total newbie so be kind lol Edited November 5, 2015 by elsiegee40
elsiegee40 Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 Hello and welcome... and a little bump to attract the attention of those that have this type of setup
Norphy Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 You don't need an OS X server on your network just for file shares. Arguably, you don't need one to manage them either, depending on what you want to manage. A Mac will quite happily join an Active Directory domain and talk to Windows file servers over SMB.
Eudora931 Posted November 5, 2015 Author Posted November 5, 2015 Hi Norphy, current server has cc4 installed and not managed to join Mac to it yet...do you know if that is possible?
Eudora931 Posted November 5, 2015 Author Posted November 5, 2015 Also the school recently bought a Riso printer with papercut and have not been able to use that properly - as I said newbie to school so inherited!
Norphy Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 CC4 is just an add on to Active Directory so, as far as I know, it should join fine. However, the newest version of CC that I've used is CC3 so I can't say for sure
Sagima Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 My one tip with macs on a windows network - If you do join macs to the ad domain make sure you set the mac's time server to be the domain controller and don't leave it as an internet one (just type over it with an ip address) - the seemingly tiniest mismatch between them seemed to be the cause of all my login woes with them.
JamesA Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 I have printed from a Mac to a Riso ComColor copier using Google Cloud Print installed on our Windows File and Print server. https://support.google.com/a/answer/3179170?hl=en This will only print from Google Chrome, when I have time I'm going to try an app from the Mac App Store called Cloud Printer. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cloud-printer/id463448876?mt=12 https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/apps.html If this doesn't work purchasing a RIP for the Riso would work but is an expensive option.
Eudora931 Posted November 8, 2015 Author Posted November 8, 2015 Hi JamesA, The school has a RIP setup so all standalone macs are working - it's more that it's unmanaged via papercut as no domain /managed machines except the ones on cc4 ( Windows machines) My Plan is to go vanilla , add all Windows machines/boards to domain. Then have the X server to manage to Mac side of things . Too many random things to do into detail here- but lots to 'tidy up' e.g backups etc. Currently things work but very unmanaged so any changes need almost an army . V large primary school over 2 sites who have not had an I house tech or network manager before . Big into macs . Challenging but very exciting to be able to come in and make an impact!
Quackers Posted November 8, 2015 Posted November 8, 2015 If you don't have one already, get Deploy Studio installed and running to image your Mac's over the network. Its all no cost. Also get Munki going as its ace for pushing out things like Flash Player which seem to have no end of updates.
Eudora931 Posted November 8, 2015 Author Posted November 8, 2015 Hi quackers - do you mean install deploy studio onto the X server?
Quackers Posted November 8, 2015 Posted November 8, 2015 Hi quackers - do you mean install deploy studio onto the X server? Yes, its an OS X program
witch Posted November 9, 2015 Posted November 9, 2015 come on guys, I am sure some of you can really help with this (not me, I have never worked with macs!)
AwkwardUnicorn Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 TL;DR - You don't need to have a Mac server to have Macs in your environment. Everything can be done by Windows Servers. The only Mac server we have now is a Mac Mini running as a cache server (highly recommended!). We run an (almost) entirely Mac based environment. All students use Macbooks and iPads and all staff have a choice between Mac OS or Windows. Way back when, we used to manage all our accounts on Mac's by using Active directory. As said above the only thing you need to do is set the time server to your domain controller (we did this via managed preference so it could not be changed by users)... This way works, and was great paired with a simple mac management system for deploying applications and such. When a new computer arrive at IT we would image it (I think we used Deploy studio) and then bind to the domain and job's done. X serve was allowing macs access to the file shares. Now that we are a lot more experienced with Mac OS (and the fact the students now own their own devices) we've moved away from the domain controllers and instead to a management suite (can we name drop on these forums?). Now literally everything is automated, from a new computer enrollments, to software installations, to remote recovery, software repairs and (though we don't like it) even imaging. We moved to Windows shares years ago and never looked back. We have a very hands off approach towards Computer deployment and management. Not sure if any of this answers your question as I found your post a little difficult to read, however hopefully this post has some helpful information!
2097 Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 How i done ours Windows server for authentication and windows file shares mac mini for cache server , profile manager and mac file shares The users on the macs logon using there windows credentials, profile manager applys there profile settings based on year group which limits there access to the machine, sets backgrounds and an customization. There OSX profiles are stored in there Windows home directory and not on the macs so are effectively roaming profiles. Have a custom plist to not redirect some of the cache folders and also another plist to create some symlinks on there desktop that links to there Mac Documents , Windows Documents and shared folders based on year group on both windows and mac networks. Works fine , only downside is makes there home directorys where there documents are stored on the windows network a little bit more messy i.e. It used to be U:\Documents ( that was the only file in there ), but now it has multiple folders in there from the Mac profile U:\ Documents and another U:\ Documents and U:\Desktop, U:\Library etc.
Eudora931 Posted November 18, 2015 Author Posted November 18, 2015 So, I managed to add a mac to my CC4 AD - albeit outsidde the RM establishment How do I now get my mac to have the windows login when the machine first boots up?
AwkwardUnicorn Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 (edited) So, I managed to add a mac to my CC4 AD - albeit outsidde the RM establishment How do I now get my mac to have the windows login when the machine first boots up? Hey Geekette, I've replied to your PM It is quite early here though and I've not have coffee yet so take it with a grain of salt! Edited November 18, 2015 by AwkwardUnicorn
Eudora931 Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 Having looked at several options - I'm thinking - for our school - of keeping the macs and Windows machines separate . IE Windows server as dhcp, printer,admin office shares, Windows machines And Mac server for mac and iPad management IE the more I think about it , I don't see any real benefit of adding macs to the domain. 1) because school uses google drive for file sharing 2) admin office macs can be mapped to secure Windows shares 3) macs are printing via a RIP 4) I can then use X server for Mac and iPad management 5) looking to get chrome books for students Does anyone see any major issues with this? Thanks !
jcza Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 Also the school recently bought a Riso printer with papercut and have not been able to use that properly - as I said newbie to school so inherited! PaperCut can be a little tricky to get working on restricted Macs as the whitelisting is a little temperamental with the various scripts inside the PaperCut Client App. Not sure if it helps with your problem but in our case we did it all through Apple's profile manager where we found that you do not whitelist the PaperCut App itself under "allow apps" but rather just add the following path under "allowed folders" /Applications/PaperCut/ Doing both or just the App will result in the App trying to load and all the contained scripts failing. Hopefully knowing this will stop you going round in circles for hours like we did.
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