manxdan

To work around this problem, we pre-stage the OSX Home directories with a user template, and edit the permissions before the user logs in. The permissions on the Home folders have to be edited thus: take off Allow Full control take off Allow Change permissions take off Allow Take ownership Once the Deny Delete is in place, it can be a PITA to fix.! this can be scripted.

Just a heads up. note that CS6 does not work with networked user accounts unless clients and servers are on 10.7 or higher I've had to downgrade to CS 5.5 as my servers are still on 10.6.8

Hi folks, upgrading to 10.8 this summer from 10.6.8 servers and clients - Most student Network homes are on a Promise RAID accessed via 2 XServers (early 2008 model). I have a recent Mac Pro which can become the new OD Master. Question is, as the old XServers won't run 10.8, anyone know if I can run clients and OD master on 10.8 whilst running the file servers on 10.7? many thanks

no there's two independent RAID controllers - It's two separate RAIDs just in the same chassis.

currently restoring from backup . . . again. We have a Promise RAID with two partitions providing volumes for student network homes (a2k & l2z). These are connected via Fibrechannel to two xserves running OSX Server 10.6 for AFP We are repeatedly having problems with just one of these. The failure seems to occur gradually over a few days starting with users experiencing slow access, later they lose write access to their own directories, and finally the whole volume becomes un-mountable. Disk Utility find some problems and makes some repairs with varying degrees of success, but ultimately fails while: "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required" Disk Warrior one one occasion managed to rebuild the directory, but it was still unusable. generally Disk Warrior reports: "the directory cannot be rebuilt due to a disk hardware failure" The RAID's own management software reports everything is A ok hardware wise. Erasing and restoring the volume from backup gets us running again- but not for long it would appear. The xserve in question is the older of the 2 anybody have any ideas where the problem may lie? many thanks

- puts hand up been fully Mac since the BBC's got skipped. Mac Servers since MacManager on OS9. now on 4 Xserves. using OD, AFP, DHCP, DNS etc. "It doesn't do the job better" - no, but I reckon it does it just as well. "and hardware is just expensive." - yes it was expensive, but bulletproof - one small hardware issue in 15 years - happily running 2 x 6 year old Xserves now. where we save over M$ though is: OSX Server software and licensing ~£52 per server - unlimited users - forever. no CALs or annual license costs. also very light on AV requirements.

OSX Server only works as a PDC for clients up to XP SP1 - SP2 breaks it.

FYI * the user template is only referred to at the creation of a new user home directory * the template on your client image is used when creating a local home directory (eg when using mobile accounts) * when creating a network home directory, the template referred to resides on the startup disk of the server where the network home is stored. I force only 3 things in the dock via wgm (leave these out of the template or you get 2 of each!) and add a few others via the template.

Although not supported by Apple for servers, I find Time Machine works a treat with the addition of a third party Time Machine editor. Currently backing up ~4 TB to an xraid in another building.

We use mobile accounts on all wireless kit as the wireless bottleneck meant that network homes became unusably slow with large classes of iBooks or MacBooks. they're managed such that no synchronisation takes place, but the dock contains a shortcut to the users network home. Users need to copy work to/from they're network homes. Pros: relatively fast wireless login / apps like iMovie and Photoshop run well / students can work at home / always starting with a fresh uncluttered home / less load on network/servers. Cons: users forget to copy work and forget which laptop it's on / iphoto, itunes, imovie create local libraries making it hard for students to access their "stock" of pictures etc. / if used by many users, smaller drives can rapidly fill up with user accounts / Dreamweaver completely loses the plot if your "site" moves. IMO mobile accounts work extremely well for the one to one type loan scheme where a student uses a laptop for a two week project or whatever. not so good with trolleys in classrooms. I think PHD's are a necessary evil. if it weren't for the wireless networking being too slow, we wouldn't be using them.

..:: BTV & BTV Pro ::.. should do the trick

provided the users network home folders are named with the user's shortname, passenger is the tool you require. the splendid batch permissions facility does not even require registration Passenger: The Mac Server Account Creation Utility

I had that problem until I ticked the checkbox in the Server Admin / Sharing setup area: "use sharepoint for network home folders"

One of the nifty features in Leopard Server is the ability to share a Network/Library set up the share, bung your fonts in there and everybody get 'em.

Although OSX server makes noises about managing Windows clients, I have found that in reality these services only work on Windows clients up to XP SP1 (bit like NT) and then only with limited functionality. Our situation is similar to yours with the Tech dept using PC's. We set these up to use Internet and Printing via a local account without network homes. Students saving work do so using our VLE/mail system or pendrives etc. and seem happy enough with the solution. Works for us I find people who routinely recommend AD are usually not familiar with alternatives. OD, Workgroup manager etc. is both powerful and pleasure to use. I'd stick with it.