Saving to mapped network drive

[SC92]

Hi all,

 

We've got our students' network drives mapped on logon, which is great, works a treat initially. However lately we've been having A LOT of students saving work to their mac directory, as when they go to >"Save As" in MSOffice 2011 they see what they think is their network drive in the drop-list, but its actually their local mac profile. Is there a way to make that network drive "appear" (technical term!) in that drop down list when they go to > File > Save As?

 

We have never had a problem with this before as it was mostly the KS4 kids using the mac suite last year but now the year 7, 8s, and 9s and starting to use the room, which as you all probably know from experience gets confusing for them and increasingly frustrating for us!

 

Many thanks

Sam

[HodgeHi]

To be honest I think it's more a training/learning issue rather than a technical one. The 2 are there for a reason and maybe they need to be shown/told the difference.

 

Other than that not sure how you would get around this.

[SC92]

Hodge,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

But the network user drive does not show up in the list whatsoever when saving from Word for mac etc. It's really strange.

 

Sam

[stevenwba]

Hi Sam,

So when on the mac they can see their network drive, but in office 2011 they cant see it.

 

As hodge said, we had something similar, but it was just a matter of showing users not to just save the first place they see, and to locate there shared folder.

 

I have the same problem on machines that use windows 7, just because it looks different to xp and shows locations differently.

 

A screenshot of what they can see in office when clicking save might help

[SC92]

Hi Steven,

 

I think i've sussed it out. Users can drag the network drive into the save location box and then save from there. The only annoying thing is that the changes aren't saved on logoff.. So they will have to do this everytime they want to save to their windows network share from mac office?

[HodgeHi]

Have you updated Office 2011? A new update has recently been released that resolves some issues.

[stevenwba]

Hi Steven,

 

I think i've sussed it out. Users can drag the network drive into the save location box and then save from there. The only annoying thing is that the changes aren't saved on logoff.. So they will have to do this everytime they want to save to their windows network share from mac office?

 

Sam, I've just decided to take a look on ours, saving a word document, and i have the same problem as you do, id never noticed before, word defaults to documents, and then only lets you browse to folders that are local.

[HodgeHi]

I think the answer lies with the sidebar. If you have the sidebar configured to show connected servers then the user can click on these and view the shares available to them. The shares should mount automatically using Kerberos if you are setup in that way.

[Sheridan]

You can make their network drive their home drive (using the Directory Utility) so that they effectively have no local storage. This worked for us but we had to disable it again as all the Macs used the freeze regularly for 30seconds-1 minute. Never got around the problem so just had to educate the students to drag their work to the network icon in their dock.

[SC92]

You can make their network drive their home drive (using the Directory Utility) so that they effectively have no local storage. This worked for us but we had to disable it again as all the Macs used the freeze regularly for 30seconds-1 minute. Never got around the problem so just had to educate the students to drag their work to the network icon in their dock.

 

Sounds EXACTLY what i'm looking for! Forgive me for being a bit thick but what's Directory Utility? This is something i'm more than willing to give a go, getting fed up with several students and EVEN some staff complaining that the work they did in our mac suite was "lost"..

[Sheridan]

Have you bound your Macs to AD? Thats what the Directory Utility is for (amongst other things)

 

Heres how we did it:

 

Using the DU (on local disk its System>Library>Core Services>Directory Utility) you can configure the AD options (binding etc) and under the Advanced options there are two options that are relevant:

Force local home diectory on startup disk - Uncheck this

Use UNC Path from Active Directory to derive network home location - Check this

 

This means users 'home' is mapped to their AD home folder/share. It didn't work for us due to the freezing problems but that may be down to our network configuration, I never found a solution and gave up!

 

It did work in the sense you mean though, files were automatically saved to their home, which in our case was mapped to a share on a Windows 2003 server.

[HodgeHi]

You can also bind to directories using ARD and the unix command...

 

#Ad Bind Script
# Host-specific parameters
# computerid should be set dynamically, this value must be machine-specific
# This value may be restricted to 19 characters! The only error you'll receive upon entering
# an invalid computer id is to the effect of not having appropriate privileges to perform the requested operation
#computerid=`/sbin/ifconfig en0 | awk '/ether/ { gsub(":", ""); print $2 }'` # MAC Address
#computerid=`hostname`
#computerid=`/usr/sbin/scutil --get LocalHostName | cut -c 1-19` # Assure that this will produce unique names!
computerid=`/usr/sbin/scutil --get LocalHostName`

# Standard parameters
domain="your.domain.com"			# fully qualified DNS name of Active Directory Domain
udn="admin username"			# username of a privileged network user e.g. domain admin
password="password"					# password of a privileged network user e.g. domain admin
ou="OU=Your_OU,DC=Fully,DC=Qualified,DC=Domain,DC=Name"		# Distinguished name of container for the computer

# Advanced options
alldomains="enable"			# 'enable' or 'disable' automatic multi-domain authentication
localhome="disable"			# 'enable' or 'disable' force home directory to local drive
protocol="afp"				# 'afp' or 'smb' change how home is mounted from server
mobile="disable"			# 'enable' or 'disable' mobile account support for offline logon
mobileconfirm="disable"		# 'enable' or 'disable' warn the user that a mobile acct will be created
useuncpath="enable"			# 'enable' or 'disable' use AD SMBHome attribute to determine the home dir
user_shell="/bin/bash"		# e.g., /bin/bash or "none"
preferred="-nopreferred"	# Use the specified server for all Directory lookups and authentication
						# (e.g. "-nopreferred" or "-preferred ad.server.edu")
admingroups=""				# These comma-separated AD groups may administer the machine (e.g. "" or "APPLE\mac admins")
packetsign="allow"			# allow | disable | require
packetencrypt="allow"		# allow | disable | require
passinterval="0"			# number of days
namespace="domain"			# forest | domain

### End of configuration

# Activate the AD plugin
defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/DirectoryService "Active Directory" "Active"
plutil -convert xml1 /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/DirectoryService.plist

# Bind to AD
dsconfigad -f -a $computerid -domain $domain -u $udn -p "$password" -ou "$ou"

# Configure advanced AD plugin options
if [ "$admingroups" = "" ]; then
dsconfigad -nogroups
else
dsconfigad -groups "$admingroups"
fi

dsconfigad -alldomains $alldomains -localhome $localhome -protocol $protocol \
-mobile $mobile -mobileconfirm $mobileconfirm -useuncpath $useuncpath \
-shell $user_shell $preferred -packetsign $packetsign -packetencrypt $packetencrypt \
-passinterval $passinterval -namespace $namespace

# Restart DirectoryService (necessary to reload AD plugin activation settings)
killall DirectoryService


defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/SearchNodeConfig "Search Node Custom Path Array" -array "/Active Directory/All Domains"
defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/SearchNodeConfig "Search Policy" -int 3
plutil -convert xml1 /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/SearchNodeConfig.plist

killall DirectoryService

 

Runs as Root User.

 

Just tweak it for your network.

Edited September 30, 2011 by HodgeHi

[HodgeHi]

Also any changes you wish to make to the Directory Util you can do so using ARD and the unix tool to send the dsconfigad command followed by the option you wish to change. EG using

 

dsconfigad -localhome disable

 

should disable the local home option.

 

This command...

 

dsconfigad -useuncpath enable

 

should enable the use of the UNC profile path set in AD Users and Computers.

Edited September 30, 2011 by HodgeHi

[SC92]

Hi Hodge,

 

I just ran the first command in ARD without problems but wasn't able to run the second one. I checked Directory Utility anyway and the settings seem to be as you stated above already. This is getting really frustrating as i'm getting students in their droves this year saving work to their local mac documents. I'll upload a screenshot in a few minutes to make things easier to understand.

 

Edited October 10, 2011 by SC92

[HodgeHi]

Do you need to change the protocol to AFP instead of SMB?

 

If so...

dsconfigad -protocol afp

[SC92]

Hi Hodge,

 

Thanks for the reply. I tried changing from SMB to AFP but I then seemed to lose our mapped drives completely so i'm guessing they're mapped by using SMB commands? I'm just looking at the sidebar prefs in WGM but can't seem to find anything of relevance and I don't really want to fiddle with a load of settings that I have no idea what will happen if I do so.

[stevenwba]

Hi Hodge,

 

Thanks for the reply. I tried changing from SMB to AFP but I then seemed to lose our mapped drives completely so i'm guessing they're mapped by using SMB commands? I'm just looking at the sidebar prefs in WGM but can't seem to find anything of relevance and I don't really want to fiddle with a load of settings that I have no idea what will happen if I do so.

 

I was also looking for the pref to control the sidebar, and hide network and computers etc

 

Hopefully hodge will come and rescue us (:

[HodgeHi]

If you are using the OS X Server to dish out your shares for the home dirs (like I do) then you can set them so they use both SMB and AFP protocols. I can do this since OS X Server handles the share points for the home dirs. If you hold yours on the Windows servers then this cannot be done unless you install a third party AFP service.

 

The sidebar prefs aren't in WGM by default. You have to add them using the Details part. This allows you to add additional plist files to the system preferences which in turn allows you to manage more items and software using WGM.

 

The plist file you need for the sidebars is com.appple.sidebarlists.plist

 

There is a thread somewhere in the mac forum where tony rocco goes through how to use this sidebar plist file to lock down the sidebar. I must say I found it a bit limited when I first tried it but I haven't had chance to look at it again since reading the thread.

[stevenwba]

If you are using the OS X Server to dish out your shares for the home dirs (like I do) then you can set them so they use both SMB and AFP protocols. I can do this since OS X Server handles the share points for the home dirs. If you hold yours on the Windows servers then this cannot be done unless you install a third party AFP service.

 

The sidebar prefs aren't in WGM by default. You have to add them using the Details part. This allows you to add additional plist files to the system preferences which in turn allows you to manage more items and software using WGM.

 

The plist file you need for the sidebars is com.appple.sidebarlists.plist

 

There is a thread somewhere in the mac forum where tony rocco goes through how to use this sidebar plist file to lock down the sidebar. I must say I found it a bit limited when I first tried it but I haven't had chance to look at it again since reading the thread.

 

We have our home dir on windows shares so i guess theres not much we can do.

 

So do you have windows home dir and mac home dir, and keep all work on mac separate from work created on windows?

[round2it]

what i have setup is

 

map windows homefolder and display it on the dock

 

click on the homefolder and then open it in finder

 

at the top you get the name of the homefolder and a little folder icon drag this icon over to the places bar on the side bar and for that session the user can select the windows homefolder to save into and load.

[SC92]

Like steven we also have our users' home folders on windows shares. Is this now completely out of the question?

 

I had a play around with the details things on WGM and with the .plist you said Hodge, and I found sometihng under this:

 

 

These 3 represent shares that are shown in our sidebar in Finder. I'm hopeful that someone knows what to do at this point because i'm looking at it and it looks juuuuust a little bit... daunting? I had a thought that if I just dragged my mac admin network folder into the sidebar and then saved the .plist and put it in WGM, but this would just map my admin drive to all students?

[SC92]

what i have setup is

 

map windows homefolder and display it on the dock

 

click on the homefolder and then open it in finder

 

at the top you get the name of the homefolder and a little folder icon drag this icon over to the places bar on the side bar and for that session the user can select the windows homefolder to save into and load.

 

Appreciate the reply mate - I had found this out a few days ago and whilst it IS useful in most situations, it isn't for me because the teachers that teach in our mac suite are a nightmare and are almost completely IT illiterate. But that's another story for another day!

 

I don't suppose there's a way of automatically adding each users' home folder to the sidebar on logon?

[SC92]

what i have setup is

 

map windows homefolder and display it on the dock

 

click on the homefolder and then open it in finder

 

at the top you get the name of the homefolder and a little folder icon drag this icon over to the places bar on the side bar and for that session the user can select the windows homefolder to save into and load.

 

Appreciate the reply mate - I had found this out a few days ago and whilst it IS useful in most situations, it isn't for me because the teachers that teach in our mac suite are a nightmare and are almost completely IT illiterate. But that's another story for another day!

 

I don't suppose there's a way of automatically adding each users' home folder to the sidebar on logon?

[SC92]

I've been playing around with .plists and have seen one in WGM about sidebarpreferences. Is there such a .plist file located anywhere other than in WGM? What I want to try and do is log on as a student user, drag the network drive into the sidebar thus making changes to the plist file, and then copy that into WGM to roll it out to the clients. Is this possible?

[HodgeHi]

I don't think that would work either. If I remember correctly I tried something similar with another share. It doesn't use any variables for the username. You may be able edit the plist and place a variable in it instead of the name but I'm not sure what variable you would need to use. $1 returns the username I think as does @%1 or something like that.

 

Take a look at the ManagedClient preferences. You will need to add them to WGM like before. This file has quite a few items in. It may even help you get to where you need to be.

 

Failing all of this though, if I remember right you just want access to the home dir for Word docs. If you have are AD integrated, then the users should have SSO for the AD shares. If the AD server that holds their home dirs is listed in the sidebar then just get them to click this server and their home share should mount automatically allowing them just to browse to their home dir.

 

Also, I assume that you have clicked on the down arrow next to the save as box. This brings up a bigger window allowing you to choose more areas to save into and the sidebar options.

 

PS. The ManagedClient preferences can be found in the /System/Library/Core Services/ folder.