Creating a small office network with Leopard

Here is the set up. I apologize for the length but I want to explain as much as possible.
I work in a small ad agency that has 6 macs: 1 G4 mini (Tiger), 2 PowerMac G4 Mirrored (Tiger), 1 Cube G4 (Tiger), 1 MacBook (Leopard, 1 iMac CoreDuo (Leopard).
The user names of our home directories are all over the place, some machines have the same user name (two different machines have the same user name "FRED" for example).
Some of us connect to our network wirelessly and some through the ethernet plugs in the walls.
We work off files on an External Hard Drive connected to a MacMini G4 running Leopard.
We have had so much BAD LUCK with this.
Some users can't save files that others worked on because of "insufficient privleges".
SOOOO... we switched the MacMini's OS to Tiger because it worked before we upgraded to Leopard. Now we can't back up the External Hard Drive either by copying the files to a Firewire External Hard Drive or by using something like Carbon Copy cloner.
I have clicked IGNORE PERMISSIONS of the External Hard Drive and the backup Firewire External Hard Drive and still no dice.
SO.... We are starting over. We are getting an Intel MacMini as the brain and two USB externals to set up as a RAID for the file storage. We are then using a third external USB to run time machine.
My questions:
1) Should we create new user accounts on our existing machines to "start over", using unique names? A server guy from another ad agency suggested this.
2) Is there a way to reset all file permissions on the existing external file storage hard drive so that EVERYONE can read and write? I would like to do this before trying to copy all these files to our new RAID External Hard Drives.
Sorry this is so **** long and confusing, but I can't find any straight answers.

jocko homo wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I wish we could get Lepard server but the budget didn't include money to get it unfortunately.
Any chance of looking at the budget again? It seems like an awful lot of work for something that only costs $500.
Does that mean I set the UID for every user to the same Number? I'm not up on what a UID is unfortunately.
It would definitely be a good idea. It probably won't do much to address your problem. It would just remove another layer of complexity. The UID is the user ID. Root is user ID 0. The first user is usually 501, second 502, etc. If you had each machine setup the same way, then user 505 on machine A would have full access to user 505's files on machine B. The actual names are irrelevant. It is the UID that is important.
But again, this does not address your issue at all. You actually need user 505 to access user 501's files. That is something else. Ignoring permissions will work for local file systems, but not for networked file systems. Unfortunately, I'm not really that familiar with network security in an application environment like MacOS X. There are certainly ways to do it and MacOS X server is certainly one way. I don't know the others.

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1, Get a cable internet ISP account; depending on your service you should be able to secure a 5Mbps down and 2Mbps up on the cable e.g. Cox or Comcast.
2. Get a good router. The mass market Linksys and Netgear routers aren't very good in terms of reliability. I use a ZyXEL P-330W router is the best I've ever seen. Its reliable and very efficient in terms of throughout. The Apple Airport Extreme is good.
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7. If you have Ethernet in your office then skip steps 5 and 6 above.
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Click the Wireless tab below th row of icons
Wireless Mode = Create a wireless network
Wireless Network Name = Your choice
No check mark needed next to "Allow this network to be extended"
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Channel = Automatic
Wireless Security = WPA2 Personal an excellent choice if all of your devices are compatible with this setting
Wireless Password = Your wireless password
Confirm Password
Click the Internet icon
Connect Using = Ethernet
Connection Sharing = Off (Bridge Mode)
Update to save settings
Configure AirPort Express 2 exactly the same way and Update to save settings
Then, power down the entire network.....all devices....order is not important
Wait a moment, then start the modem/router first and let it run 2-3 minutes by itself
Start each AirPort Express the same way
Start each other network device one at a time about a minute apart
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If you want to try the "roaming" setup again, assign the exact same wireless network name, security and password to both Express devices and confirm again that both are setup in Bridge Mode as the very last step before you click the Update button in AirPort Utility.
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Hi,
In System Preferences > Sharing is the Name the Computer has.
This does play a part in any Bonjour Connection.
It is this name that appears in Shares in the Finders's Side bar.
Separate for that iChat and Messages that have the Bonjour Account Enabled broadcast the details from the My Card in the Address Book.
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You get similar difficulties on some DiskImage roll outs of updates and the like if the details of the Address Book are copied as well.
I am not sure what you mean by the "fix" in System Preferences > Users and Groups to change the My Card or the Computer's Name.
Yes you can click the Contact Card for that account and it will show you it in the Address Book and it should be th My Card.
Changing the My Card then does not alter which Card is associated with the Mac User Account.
There is no access to the Computer's Name
7:53 PM Wednesday; August 1, 2012
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Hello, rjbm_exact.
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1 peer-to-peer
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Hi,
Thanks for your posting.
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Hi,
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When I do this the Airport complains of a 'double NAT issue'. Internet connectivity seems to be OK, but when switching between the two networks on my Mac I get complaints about my IP address being in use by another device intermittently.
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So if someone is connected to the modem/router network they will be able to see the HD I will have put in to the AirPort Extreme?
As I said above.....since the modem/router and AirPort are bridged, devices on the modem/router wireless will be able to "see" devices on the AirPort wireless, and vice versa.....
If they can see the HD connected to the AirPort Extreme, will they be able to access it
Yes, unless you plan to password protect the drive connected to the AirPort Extreme.
or will they still need the password needed to get onto the AirPort Extreme network?
The modem/router and AirPort Extreme are bridged. They are on the same network. All devices are on the same network when the modem/router and AirPort are bridged. Not sure how else that I can say this.
Also, because it is bridged, I shouldn't have any problems accessing the HD I will have connected to the AirPort Extreme from an external location?
Accessing devices from a remote location is never easy....and a topic for a different post/discussion. If you have a "static" Internet IP address from your provider, and have all the details on how to forward ports on your modem/router, you are off to a good start.
Apparently there is some addressing issues because devices can be seen as "Double IP" because the modem/router would have allocated IP's as well as the AirPort allocating IP's thus making connections slower until resolved
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Once again, in very simple terms, you have two doors (access points) that open into the same room (network). One "door" is the modem/router and the other "door" is the AirPort Extreme. They are on the same network....("room") because they are bridged.

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Hello all,
Any recommendations on how to setup a small network with 3 machines and mutiple users?
We run a design studio and currently have 3 x 27" iMacs with a couple of laptops that come and go, that all connect to a Synology DS213 NAS drive. (All the iMacs are connected to the NAS via ethernet through a gigabit switch, so we have a reliable connection)
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Rick may be right because although i didnt think of it before i tend to have notoriuosly long classnames for my php classes and i have used samba on occasion (when rsync is out of the question for one reason or another) and never had a problem. I use kubuntu (feisty at the moment )with an ext3 filesystem. if i have a chance this evening ill give it a try and see what happens.
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Ill be interested to know what you end up implementing....
OH one last thought... Compile Darwin from source and use that as your server

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Creating a small office network with Leopard

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