Home Directory (redirection)

[Edwardjr]

Hi there I've had a look round on the mac section and couldn't find much on this so...

 

We have just installed an xserve 10.6 server and 20 odd imacs running 10.6. OD & AD are working fine - student's & staff can logon and they have their home directory in the dock.

 

Only problem so far is that when you try to save files from Office 2011 and Adobe CS4 you don't get the option to save to the home directory in the drop down save box the only options are - local directory ( which doesn't redirect & Mac HD )

 

Has anyone been in a silimar situation? I'm not too sharp on the mac stuff so any help is much appreciaited.

 

Edward

[Carter]

There are a few topics below this one that mention this. By default Mac OS X put the link in the dock and does not mount the user folder but mounts the server itself which makes it nearly impossible to browse if there are a fair number of user home folders.

 

I posted a topic yesterday that has an applescript that can be used as a login script to auto mount the logged in users home folder as a mounted drive. This way you can browse the users actual drive.

 

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[Edwardjr]

Ah thanks for that, please excuse my ignorance but how does one create a script - is it just a simple case of using textedit or do I need to save it as a specific file?

[Carter]

"AppleScript Editor" is found in the Utilities folder. Copy and paste the script into that then save/export it. From there you will need to look up on how to place it into the startup scripts.

 

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[Edwardjr]

Cool thanks, I've just been reading up on that.

 

Will give it a go now.

[Edwardjr]

Ok I've just tried this and it didn't work, heres what im doing:-

 

Creating an apple script and entering the following, which I saved to the desktop.

 

set MyName to do shell script "whoami"
tell application "Finder"
mount volume "smb://SERVER/SHARE/" & MyName & ";" & MyName & ":password"
end tell

 

Then via terminal

 

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Desktop/scriptname

 

Please tell me if I'm being a numpty and something is wrong.

[maniac]

You're doing better than me, I'm struggling to get AD and OD to behave themselves at the moment! Looks like I'll soon be having this very same problem as we have CS4 as well, so when you do get it to work I'd be interested to know.

[Carter]

If I find time later today after work I'll see if I can get this to run with a login of an AD account.

 

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[tomdawson]

@Edwardjr - On the mac client, in System Prefs > Accounts > Login Options > Network Account Server > Directory Utility > Edit Active Directory > Advanced Options (phew!) - uncheck the "Force local home directory on startup disk" checkbox. This worked for me in my thread, it just points the home directory to the network home folder share as specified in AD. For example, user 'student3' logs on, he will see "student3$" listed next to the house icon (indicating his home folder). "Use UNC path from AD to derive network home location" should also be checked, and make sure you use smb.

 

As Carter previously noted, this could increase network traffic if your users are working with big chunky movie and photo files, but as far as I can tell it works in exactly the same way as redirecting My Docs to a share.

 

Might be handy as an aside, again on the Directory Utility under Administrative, check "Allow administration by" and then add in some Windows groups (e.g. Domain Admins) so you don't have to set up an entire OD group just for your admins/techs.

 

Obviously you can image your client just after this, but before binding to the domain, so you won't have to do this for every client.

 

HTH!

Edited October 14, 2010 by tomdawson

[MouseAT]

@Edwardjr - On the mac client, in System Prefs > Accounts > Login Options > Network Account Server > Directory Utility > Edit Active Directory > Advanced Options (phew!) - uncheck the "Force local home directory on startup disk" checkbox. This worked for me in my thread, it just points the home directory to the network home folder share as specified in AD.

 

Don't do it this way if you're using MS Office (or at least if you're running Office 2008). We tried this, only to find our users couldn't work with DOC, XLS or PPT files from any source, local or network (although strangely the newer DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files were fine).

 

In the end, I left the "Force local home directory on startup disk" enabled, then ran a login script to delete the documents, pictures, music, videos and downloads folders from the local user profile, replacing them with Symlinks to the mounted network volume. This essentially redirects these folders for the user, so that when they log in, all their applications default to saving in their network My Documents/My Music/My Pictures folders.

[Edwardjr]

Thanks tomdawson,

 

It seems to work pretty well however there are a few home sync errors that pop up when some students log on.

 

For example :- "There is a problem syncing the file blabla.pdf" and the user has to click on next on all the files that do not sync. Is there anyway of avoiding this?

 

 

Many thanks

[tomdawson]

Syncing? Very odd - it should literally just point the home directory to the network share in the same way as changing the target of My Docs in XP to a network share. Have you got Mobility features enabled in the machine/user preferences? (or, indeed, is that what you're trying to achieve?)

[Edwardjr]

Hi tomdawson,

 

Na this is not what we wanted, other than that since trying this way the mac clients are dropping off the windows domain 15-20 mins from adding it or if a user restarts the mac client.

 

Any ideas?

[tomdawson]

So disabling the force local home option is causing your clients to drop off the windows domain? That's nuts... Anything in Console?

[MartynJ]

I have setup our macs the same way (Replace the local home folder with the network home folder) and im having the issue with the mac clients failing to login again with a different user for 15-20 mins or until i restart the mac.

 

I was looking at putting a LogoffHook script in place to make the mac restart everytime the student logs off, but there was a problem which if you selected shutdown it will still restart.

 

Dont you just love trying to get a mac to act like a PC

[tomdawson]

Dont you just love trying to get a mac to act like a PC

Agreed - trying to persuade my boss to let me BootCamp them all with XP. The only thing the ACTUALLY need to do on the Mac is iMovie. I think you'll find that you can now get Photoshop and Office for PCs, too!!

[Edwardjr]

I've unticked the force home directory button and now I get the home drive and the sync has stopped which a nice. But I'm still stuck with these clients dropping from AD -"This domain is not responding" everytime I re-add the Active Directory and then reboot it will drop off...

 

Any ideas?

[MartynJ]

I have done a work around on this issue. I have hidden the User folder from the hard drive, only way to access it is by Go to folder or by terminal. Im locking the system down for students, and to staff to a certain extent. Ive kept the force home directory, but made a script to mount the students/staff home drive onto the desktop which is on another post on this forum. So far its working nicely.

 

Do you have a Mac Server in place or is it just AD? And does your domain end in .local at all?

[Edwardjr]

yea we have a mac server in place and our domain name is xxx.local.

[MartynJ]

I have come across a few posts online saying that the macs have problems with talking to xxx.local domains but I cant remember what the answer is to it. Have a look on google with something along the lines of 'mac AD .local problems'. Here is a link for you to start off with though - Clicky