Lion 10.7.3 Clients being Managed by Snow Leopard server

[chill3r]

Hi Guys and Gals,

 

Just thought I would start a little topic about Lion and 10.6.8 Server

 

 

Scenario:

 

30 Mac Book Pro's with Lion 10.7.1

 

1 Mac server with SL installed and configured with AFP, DHCP, NFS, Update and Open Directory

 

1 Wireless network - very slow connection - 100mb Switch hard wired into the network for Image deployment on initial builds.

 

What the school wanted to achieve is managed preferences, Internet access to each machine - 2 accounts on each machine I.e. Student01 and Teacher 01 only these accounts being able to login to the certain machine. Adobe Photoshop, Comic Life and access to Network shares i.e. NAS Drive for Mac use only.

 

 

Work carried out.

 

Created a netboot Image for Lion using Deploy Studio and then uploaded this to the server with Netboot running

 

Created an image from one of the new machines and also uploaded this to the server

 

Created a workflow within Deploy Studio - tested and working ok with the runtime.

 

Connected 4 Mac Books up to the network on the same Subnet as the server - "this is a Must and very important"

 

Netbooted into each machine using ALT and choosing the Netboot image I created.

 

Took 4 Hours to rebuild 4 Mac Books - added the Binding Workflow so it bound each Mac to the Mac server.

 

Because of the network speeds and the size of the image it took me 2 days to image all the machines - but managed it

 

Created new account on the server 60 accounts in total

 

The computers all showed up in WGM so create a new group called managed_books and added all the computers into this group.

 

Set the managed preferences that we wanted. I.e. login window, Mobile accounts, certain mapped Links to the Nas and other drives.

 

I have each machine to show 2 login accounts (Both Portable / mobile) I set the Network account for that machine (so only the 2 network accounts could login to that machine) and logged in using the credentials, I also set a picture for the student / teacher account - done this on all the Mac books and now the login screen only shows the two accounts we need.

 

I could access the internet and other shared resources once logged into the machine (Ethernet) this was one machine at a time for testing.

 

now I was very happy with the setup and everything worked ok from my point of View - then Wireless was put into the equation (so had to set this up on each machine) - on a couple of Home based routers ? (I know not a dam good idea)

 

anyway we set out all the macbooks for a test class and I was running a bit late (Was going to tell the teacher not to tell all the students to login at the same times etc) but this happened and as you can imagine all clients logging into the network all at the same time = Server and Network meltdown - (I Hid in the office:o) )

 

Some of the problems faced here - Mobile accounts, not a good idea if you have a slow connection - we stopped synch on some of the machines and this caused problems logging in (I'll go into this later)

 

We then couldn’t access the internet - I know why this was a problems - to-do with our Proxy system - so sorted this out.

 

Network printing was ok so was accessing network resources.

 

The machines even at this level of network speed all seemed to get the MCX settings.

 

Now on a couple of the machines we stopped Network sync and now when we even delete the local account from Preferences we cannot login - we login with the other box and type username and password screen goes grey and then comes back to the login screen - but creates the account so it can be viewed on login screen. Weird!!

 

Erased network and local accounts left it for a while and tried it again by creating a network account - but still same problem - this only happens on the couple of machines that we stopped synch on - I’m going to set their Home drives to local see if this has an effect - but I know we will overcome this issue.

 

So my worries of Lion clients and Snow leopard server are no more - just a couple of niggles to iron out and that’s it - one being the Wireless (Couldn’t Look when they where logging in)

 

Hope this helps people in the same boat and also if you have any questions I can help with then Fire away )

 

P.s

 

Sorry for my spelling mistakes and also grammar i'm pretty clap at explaining things

[HodgeHi]

What routers APs are you using?

 

How many clients logging in at one time?

 

What speed is the network?

 

I have 8 MacBooks all connected to an airport extreme router (in access point mode) connected back to a 1gb switch using fully networked accounts. It can be a little slow but works relatively well.

 

With mobile accounts I have found Lion's to be a little lacking if used in conjunction with AD. MAybe setup login and logout synching for mobile accounts and have just the documents synching. Library preferences could sync in background. I always had issues with permissions when i tried it myself, but I had lots of headaches after a migration from a macbook pro to an old iMac machine around 4 months ago. It didn't go too well at all. Still feeling the effects now.

[chill3r]

Hi Mate,

 

Network AP's are BELKIN - there like Home Routers - they are really bad and shouldnt be used in this enviroment

 

There are 30 Macbooks connecting up to about 2 Ap's (This will be resolved when a Business WIFI is installed)

 

Bad Spec on the Schools part - but we got to try and work with it for the time being - im out testing tomorrow so will tye up any loose ends with the machines.

 

Cheers

[HodgeHi]

We had issues with Belkin routers in the past. Once we purchased some Airport Extreme Base stations, things seemed to work relatively well. If you need something in the interim before the business stuff comes along, maybe worth getting a couple or even finding someone to loan you one for a trial. We did have up to 15 MacBooks running off one before.

[chill3r]

The good thing is - it's being installed as we speak he he he so by the time they come back it should now be working how they wanted

[HodgeHi]

I hope it does everything you need it to buddy

[chill3r]

Cheers buddy , Ill let you know how things go

[hug]

First of all - please be sorry about my english...:-)

 

I've read your posts whit high interess - because i've a problem in this situation:

about 20 macbooks updated to 10.7.3 (with a image, over deploystudio) and a server 10.6.8. all works fine - BUT: if i start the mb's without lan-cable - only with WLAN - they can't get no connection... at the login screen (up right) the wireless-icon stays grey... no connection. i've a RADIUS-server running. i've set all the passwords (login on the machine with a admin account, set the connection... no problems...)

 

have you any idea? can i make a "pre-login" to the RADIUS while the mb's are starting??

 

thanks for your helping ideas...:-)

mike

[JR-PCS]

probably worth starting your own thread. As long as they have the wireless settings in the admin account, it should have the wireless settings from the login window too.

 

First of all - please be sorry about my english...:-)

 

I've read your posts whit high interess - because i've a problem in this situation:

about 20 macbooks updated to 10.7.3 (with a image, over deploystudio) and a server 10.6.8. all works fine - BUT: if i start the mb's without lan-cable - only with WLAN - they can't get no connection... at the login screen (up right) the wireless-icon stays grey... no connection. i've a RADIUS-server running. i've set all the passwords (login on the machine with a admin account, set the connection... no problems...)

 

have you any idea? can i make a "pre-login" to the RADIUS while the mb's are starting??

 

thanks for your helping ideas...:-)

mike

Edited April 12, 2012 by JR-PCS