Open Directory logins

[Mrpower]

I am running an open directory as our login server. Most of the time this runs fine, no issues. Client machines are mostly setup as Name and password for user to login. Some and very few are setup as List of users (round images of staff, they click on). The List of user method is very unreliable and can take five minutes or never to display the users. This is why I moved to Name & Password.

The two Macs in one classroom that use the List of Users login method. These two Macs drops the user images after a few hours or over night. I have bind the Macs to the OD server, which did solve the issue for a time.

I've checked the bind setting in network utility and it's re-binding every 120 seconds. I know if I move these two machines to Name & Password, there will be no login issues.

Anyone have any ideas why these two machines loose the user login icons after a while?

One machine is connected with wifi the other is ethernet. Both running OSX 10.13, 2017 models.

[AntonioRocco]

Is the OD environment separated from your AD network with a mac server (or servers) providing DNS & DHCP services to your mac clients?

 

Antonio Rocco

ACSC

[Mrpower]

We have no AD environment.

As I had mentioned I can go to username and password. But I was just wondering if there was a reason why? I have setup a schedule, shutdown and restart which seems to temporarily solve the problem.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Mrpower

[AntonioRocco]

Is this a standard OD environment with an OD Master and Replica and possibly a 3rd Mac server used for DNS and DHCP? If so what is your domain based around? Have you used .local or something else?

 

Antonio Rocco

ACSC

[Mrpower]

You're making my blood run a bit cold here. It's just the one machine running all DNS and DHCP. One master and no Replica. You are making be think that's bad? It's using Local, which I know is not good.

[AntonioRocco]

Apologies for all the questions and I can see you've been dreading where they were leading too. I can tell you now (in my experience) lists of users with pictures have always worked reliably going back to 10.3 (Panther) all the way up to 10.8 (Mountain Lion) at numerous sites. A single server was all I was using same as you. DNS definitely not based around .local. The thing is .local fools you into thinking it works but it doesn't really. At best it throw up oddities like the ones you see and at worst its downright unreliable. It can also seriously fubar the OD database. If you're not planning to rebuild/renew your OD once a year then those inconsistencies caused by .local only get worse. Obviously it's your choice but if AD is not involved I really can't see the sense in continuing with it. The sooner you get it changed to something else the better you'll be and the more reliable things will get.

 

Good luck.

 

Antonio Rocco

ACSA

[Mrpower]

Most of this is down to the usual classic factors of, money, not enough knowledge, hardware & setup before I work here. I had budgeted for a AD as AFP is going away and ATM OD my setup doesn't authorise SMB logins. but maybe, it will if I setup the server sans local, it might work. I had talked to a colleague that Local was a bad move and we should use a web address.

I did have a panther server (10.3) back in the day which worked flawlessly, however it was within a windows network, so it did not need to run DNS or DHCP just OD, file sharing & print management. But then, a year later I did move to Mac Admin which was a wonderful piece of software at managing Mac, printing and users. Shame it was killed by OSX 10.6. Great software. it seems to have been wiped from the internet now, hard to find out that it even existed. But I am getting off topic.

Looks like I have to make some choices over the summer holidays.

[AntonioRocco]

Not familiar with Mac Admin. Maybe you mean WorkGroup Manager? If you do then yes I agree. Post 10.7 Apple replaced it with Profile Manager. I still have an active 10.6 server working perfectly well which I use myself. I also know of two more other sites I support also working perfectly well. After 2009 it became clear Apple were moving out of Enterprise in the traditional sense and developing their own "Enterprise" methodology. Hence the resulting BYOD, MDM, ASM and so on. It's the logical way to go when you consider everything involved in modern society with mobile devices being just as or more important than traditional computers.

 

Once again good luck and if you think you may need a hand then please don't hesitate to contact me.

 

Antonio Rocco

ACSA

Edited June 18, 2021 by AntonioRocco