Dual Home directories? MAC/AD

[Greenbeast]

We're encountering problems with iPhoto libraries, it obviously wants to create a local library on the workstation which is not allowed (and would no doubt be unmanageable)

So i'm looking to create a Mac Server home directory for our users and just use a 'mapped drive/alias' for their windows home directory (same as other shared drives they've got access to

 

How can i go about configuring a Mac server home for every user that logs in to a mac?

How can i determine the location for a windows home directory for mapping a drive?

[rbelson]

I know that this is a service that some Apple Solutions Experts (ASE) in Education can assist with. If you are looking for assistance with this you could try contact them.

 

A full list of such companies can be found here - Apple (United Kingdom) - Where to Buy - Apple Solution Experts - Education

 

You can search for your nearest ASE using the search box at this link

[Greenbeast]

No other schools have this set up?

[Tricky_Dicky]

Hi,

 

What you normally do with Macs and AD is link them together in what Apple call the Magic Triangle. This is when the Macs OD authentics with the Windows AD. What this allows you to do is use the students normal home directories as they would on a Windows machine on the macs.

 

What sort of setup have you got at the moment?

 

Rich

[Greenbeast]

yes we have it set up in a magic triangle but i want any user on an iMac to be given a Mad home directory instead, to keep the iLife software happy...

[Tricky_Dicky]

You don't need a separate home directory for the iLife software though. As long as the students can write in to their own home directories it will work fine. The only thing to watch out for is sometimes when the students login for the first time it doesn't create the appropriate directories, normally misses Movies. But if you just get each child to manually create them the first time it will work fine.

Are you getting a specific error message in a specific program?

[Greenbeast]

ah, i was under the impression it wouldn't like the file system and windows based location.

 

As for specific error, i'll have to get back to you, i broke the setup i had this morning and need to reconfigure some stuff to get back to where i was last week.

[round2it]

i had the issues where the iphoto etc was not happy with using a windows share but as it happens we issue the student with the same mac and they are fine just having a link to the windows documents on the dock

it saved all the rubbish being copied to the network share also it speeds up data transfer as the machines are using the local hard drive to process videos/data .

we just get the kids to copy the final projects to the windows share when they are finished.

 

 

another plus side is the kids wont damage the machines that they rely on for the year

[Greenbeast]

Ok just about got there. when i loaded iPhoto it asked which library to use (none listed) or whether i wanted to create one. i don't remember this from before but anyway...

 

I tried to create a new one in the home area and it tells me:

'The library could not be opened because the file system of the library's volume is unsupported'

[Tricky_Dicky]

Ok, that's a new one on me.

 

Do you have a folder at the route of your home share called photos?

[Greenbeast]

Yep.

 

Round2it - that's something i'm trying to avoid

[round2it]

i could not get it to run off a ntfs share on my server but i have thought about using a nas formatted for mac to store profiles on or even utilise the mac mini server a bit more.

 

It just seemed to be the easiest option at the time as my knowledge of mac os was non existent over 10 years since i even looked at one and things have changed oh so much.

 

i was under pressure to get things working so i have not looked at anything else yet.

[iSteve]

iPhoto likes to save its stuff to HFS volumes

[Greenbeast]

so it seems, it's just making that happen that's the problem

[Greenbeast]

I was wondering if a different tack might be to mount a normal network location on the mac server that is just used for iphoto and use the windows 'home' for everything else but how can i locate the folder based on the login name?

And is there a good way of bulk creating the folders/permissions

[HodgeHi]

You would need to use augmented records to do this. You place the user home dir path in the augmented record and then on login it will overwrite what is found in the AD with this new home path.

 

However, remember that the 2 home dirs will be separated and so a link to the Home dir on the Windows partition will be needed either on the dock or on the desktop, unless you want to keep them separate.

 

Also bear in mind the potential for confusion.

 

How you go about Augmented records though is a different matter. I only looked into it briefly when 10.6.3 came out and supported it. Never got mine to work (Apple-IM Handle attribute) but that doesn't meant o say you won't have better luck. TAke a look at the Apple education/Enterprise how-to videos on their site. I'm sure I saw an augmented records video on there.