iSteve

We are using a previous generation Mac Mini Server to do this. It handles prefs for 350 odd Macs, as well as our machine images (using Deploy Studio). It copes fine. We have 5 XServes (3 Intel, 2 G5) here which at some point we will replace. A Mac Pro is too big for our racks, but we'd need one of those to utilise our Fibre Channel cards to connect to our XServe RAIDs. That, or many thousands of pounds to replace our storage infrastructure - something that I can't see happening any time soon at all.

Learn? It's what we did.

That's correct - the iMac will drop down to a 4:3 resolution to match the projector when you mirror. You can have this as a true "square", or it will stretch it. If you span the two monitor displays, you can have independent resolutions but this arrangement often blows the mind of most teachers.

We're about a 70/30 split in favour of Mac OS here. Those who use our MIS are on Windows, as are a few machines in Technology which run some crappy CAD program. We are quite often donated Wintel PCs too from the University. All 6 of our IT rooms are Mac, as are teacher computers in each classroom and open access study / library areas.

This sounds like some sort of proxy / filter issue. It's not a "Mac" problem.

How about Paintbrush or Macpaint?

10.5 = Leopard 10.6 = Snow Leopard OK, so to split this up, either make another batch of users in Active Directory which students log on to the Macs with for example: Joe Bloggs could be jbloggs, getting a Windows Home Joe Bloggs has a second log on of jbloggs2, which points to a Mac home. ...or, set up the XServe as an Open Directory Master and create the users on there so that they log on to the Mac server (Open Directory is the same kinda thing as AD) and pull their home off that. Is there a reason why you need to have separate systems? There's no reason why the home folders can't sit on either the Mac or the Windows server - either OS can host home folders for either client....

You haven't said what OS your server is, but these instructions are based on my 10.5 XServe - Open Server Admin, from the top menu go to File Sharing. Click Volumes (you want to list your drives). Find the folder / volume you wish to make a share point. Click Share. In the permissions box, set your pemissions. You have POSIX for user/group/everyone, plus an ACL (Access Control List) for more granular settings. ACLs override POSIX. Click Save to commit your changes. Depending on your needs, you can also propagate permissions by clicking the cog icon under the POSIX box. If you now to go Share Points, your share should be listed. If you click the "Share Point" tab 1/2 way down the screen, you can click 'Protocol Options' to say if you want to share the item with AFP (Apple File Protocol) or SMB (Windows sharing) or NFS etc. It depends on what is set on the client in the Active Directory plug in depending on what it mounts the home folder with - by default its AFP, but you could switch to SMB - your choice. Like others have said, if Windows users will connect, you need SMB running as Winodws can only connect with SMB. Test you can see your share. From a client do Finder > Go > connect to server. In the box type smb://server/share to check SMB works afp://server/share to check AFP Once it's all fine, go in to your Active Directory Users & Computers, and change the users' home path to that of your XServe.

First off, you need to bind / join your client Mac to Active Directory so it can authenticate. Check this first (this doesn't require an Xserve so forget that for the moment). If you are on 10.6, go in to System Prefs > Accounts, click Login Options, then next to "Network Account Server" click Edit... Then click "Open Directory Utility". Authenticate and go in to the Active Directory plugin by double clicking. Type in your AD Domain, and your compuoter host name and click Bind. You bind with your AD admin credentials. If you restart for good measure, you should be able to login. Next, home folders. Just for info, are you aware that you can put your homes on a Windows box? You technically don't need and Xserve for your Macs.....anyway, you need to bind/join your XServe to AD in the same way as a client. Then you need to open Terminal and type "dsconfigad -enableSSO" this uses directory services config and enables Single Sign On for your home folders. In Server Admin you now need to click File Sharing and define a share point for your home folders, with appropriate permissions, and enter this path in to the home folder path in AD. If you are using 10.4 on the client, Directory Utility is inside Applications > Utilities. Depending on your network, you may find it better to save video work locally on each Mac, this is what we do so save clogging servers and backups with 13GB/hour DV files. I also wouldn't try capturing to a server on anything less than a gigabit network. A rushed reply, but let me know how you get on.

That's a very good point and one that escaped my mind We have air con, but the particular conditioner we have does not automatically come back on after a power cut, so that would be a bit of a problem!

Hello, We have a few APC UPSs here at the school, powering all servers, all with network shut down etc However currently these are set to shut down servers after about 3 minutes on battery due to load vs runtime with a buffer for shut down delays etc. We've just allowed remote access to our students meaning they can log in from home....which has led me to think that just because the school has a power cut, those students 10 or 20 miles away won't so it would be nice if they could work uninterrupted. Looking at options, I could get an additional battery for my UPS to increase (for example) full load run time from 8 mins to 40 minutes, getting over the problem of short local power cuts. What do you do at your school? Do you just have a standard UPS which shuts stuff done, and tough luck to remote users? Or, do you have a power system which will run for hours? Thanks for any replies!

Hello, I'm trying to migrate a 10.5.8 PPC Server on to a new 10.6 Intel server. The machine looks after our managed preferences for our Macs, so it's an Open Directory master. The new 10.6 machine has a fresh install of 10.6 server. It has been joined to our Active Directory and I am promoting it to an OD master. I was going down the road of using the OD backup/archive from the old 10.5.8 machine, and importing/restoring this on to the 10.6 machine using the 'Merge' option. If I do this, all of my computers and groups appear and clients are managed, however in the Kerberos section of Server Admin it lists the Kerberos realm as the name of the old machine. I had found some instructions online which say you can destroy the Kerberos settings then re Kerberise the server by clicking "Kerberise" in server admin, but this option is not there once I trash the old Kerberos settings. So, is there a way to use the backup archive from the old server and somehow replace/make it forget the old hostname? or Is there a better way to do this? Any advice welcome

Hello. Well, after adding the drives I could not "see" them in XenCenter, so my first plan was to (as I said), start fresh on the new storage. However after Ric's post and some help from Google, I found this post: Adding local storage to XenServer 5.5 | ArchY.net Which explains how to add local storage. So after a bit of SSH action I have added to my storage and am moving a VM over to the new space now. Thanks for your help.

Hello, I need to move some virtual machines on to more spacious direct attached storage. I was planning to back up the VMs, then reinstall Citrix XenServer on to the larger storage, and re-import the VMs. Then I thought, could I clone the smaller storage on to the larger? I have had a look at using Clonezilla to perform this task, and while it can see the smaller, and larger storage devices, it complains that it doesn't understand the drive format and bombs out. Are there any other bootable drive clone tools which will let me copy my XenServer from a 130GB disk to a 300GB disk regardless of format? All advice welcome. Thanks!

Thanks. We have the 400i. The drive wouldn't be part of any RAID as it's just used to hold mail archives, which are then backed up elsewhere.

Hello, Hopefully a quick one here: Is it possible to use both SAS and SATA drives inside a HP DL360 G5 at the same time? I have a server which is using SAS drives, and I would like to store some archives from this server on a HP SATA drive as I can get 400GB on the SATA side of things (maximum SAS I can find is 300GB). Can I mix both types in the same server?

You can join your Macs to your Windows 2008 domain (which is what we do), by going in to Directory Utility --> Services --> Active Directory and 'binding' them in there, which is the same as what you do on Windows when you join. From here your Mac machines will log in to your Windows domain, and depending on your set up, mount a home folder and so forth. If you want to lock the Macs down Group Policy style, you need a Mac running OS X Server. This comes with Workgroup Manager, which is like GPO for Macs. Any crappy old Mac from the last 8 years could cope with this task providing it meets the requirements for whatever version of OS X Server you wish to install.

Is your managed prefs server listed in Directory Utility?

Hello, I have a few APC SmartUPS units from rackmount ones powering servers, to smaller ones in comms cabinets. All have network cards so perform network shutdowns, and email when there is a problem etc. I was wondering if software exists, from APC or elsewhere that will allow me to monitor the UPSs from a central PC instead of having to log in to each on on their individual web interfaces?

It would be easiest, especially if you are going to get any more Macs, to get a copy of OS X Server to manage the preferences on these machines in the same way you use GP with AD. Any old Mac will do to run it on (eg a 2nd hand Intel Mac Mini if cost is an issue)

Your G5 will run 10.5, but NOT 10.6 as it is a PowerPC machine. 10.6 is only supported on Intel. Yes, you can upgrade 10.4 to 10.5.

I would replace the hard disk with something faster, quieter and bigger. Any IDE drive will work, although due to addressing limits it will only see up to 128GB as said before, even it it is a 160/250 etc drive. One or two sticks of PC100/PC133 512MB RAM will be a welcome boost. If you have it, the machine will cope with 10.4, if not then stick to 10.3. We used to run some 350MHz iMac G3s with 10.4 a couple of years ago. They were fine for day to day stuff.

Thanks to Simon @ CP LTD who helped us out with our wireless kit (when another supplier wanted a large wedge of cash for after sales advice!). I'm sure we will be in touch with them in the future.

Well, the people organising this are on annual leave, and I think they are being installed by a contractor pretty soon so we're going to have to put up with whatever board has been spec'd for us by the LEA. Still, some good info here. Thanks all.

You can set your Mac up the way you want it, then boot it from an install CD and use Disc Utility from the CD to create a disc image of your 'golden mac' and save it to an external HDD. Once done, you can boot your remaining Macs from CD, and use Disc Utility to restore the image to the other Macs.