Migrating mobile home folders

What would be the best way to permanently migrate a network user's home folder(and account information) to a laptop?
Thanks

Hi
For that user (or users) define the appropriate settings in the Mobility Preference in WorkGroup Manager. On next login that user will be given the choice to create a Mobile Account. Choosing the appropriate option will then download from the Server to that particular Client Workstation all of that users' server based home folder.
Once downloaded - or more appropriately 'cached' - access the Accounts Preferences Pane on that workstation and make that user a local administrator if this is what is desired? If there is no requirement for any other account on that workstation, delete those accounts.
Once you've verified all of the data has been transferred to the local drive and if there is no further need for it, delete the home folder from the Server. I would leave the server based account because this may still be needed if that user wants to access other Services the Server is offering. Again I'm assuming this is something you'd want?
As ever try and have a current backup in place of that users' data as a just in case.
HTH?
Tony

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Alternatives or Solutions to Mobile Home Folders

Hello,
I have been using Mobile Home Folders for a while and I can not stand the errors and files that it does not sync any more. Are there any solutions to fix those errrors or an alternative? Even if it just sync the Mail library, Mail is destoryed.
Thanks,
Steven T.

The best option is to sync at only login and logout.
How many computers do you have?
An option to sync is to use a backup appliction like Archiware Backup2go. It has the following advantages:
1.You have one list wher you can see if all computers are backed up or not. Some of my clients computers suddenly doesn't sync anymore for unknown reasons and I have no way of knowing from a central point.
2. You can easily backup your clients portable computers when they are out of office.
3. No more time spending logging in on AD connected computers, which can take minutes for the users.
It is not exaclty as easy to restore a users home folder as it was, ie you need to install an application first and set it up and then restore.
In my case I set up regular users as AD/OD mobile sync, the management who usually have less understanding of waiting times etc is set up to backup using third party applications instead. Saves my lot of headace.

Open Directory and Mobile Home Folders

Hi All,
I am a bit confused about Open Directory and Mobile Accounts! here is our scenario. We have an Open Directory setup and all Accounts are set to mobile, accounts are almost 250+, my main problem is the Synchronization Conflicts, the accounts are automated to sync every 30 mins, the problem is every now and then schronization conflict windows popups, our users are complaining almost everytime, another problem is all of the users home folder has a qouta of 5GB, problem is there are users who excedd on the qouta some goes up to 60GB and 100GB, how do i solve this two problems. i am about to loose my mind. We setup like this in order for us to have a backup of all files of the users in case problem arises in the workstation. i have notice that synching file error comes up if you have temporary files used by any applications. the home folder of each user will exclude library, trash, music and entourage databse. Please Do help me.!!! Anyone who knows..?
Environment
OD Server - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.4
Workstations - mix MacOS X Tiger 10.4.4 - 10.4.7
AFP Home Folder - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.6 mounted Xsan Volume for home folders
johnaris
PLEASE HELP!

Thanks for the info, by now i will look into that little utility that is very helpful (console!)
Yes, I was thinking of synching our users at login and logout, the problem here is that, users here has bigger home folders.. mostly about 3GB, and it will took time to login a user, about 6-10 mins, depends on the network, we have networks users that that has slow networks and fast network on video editing users. What I did is that i excluded the Library in the synch options on each unit here, since we are not using Apple's Mail and iCal, it did minimize the synching error but the temp files and date discripancies are mostly that will generate an error, I am having really problems with this.
thanks for the info i really appreciate it.

Migrate network home folders from server to server

I' m migrating my existing Leopard Server to SL, but i didn't use migration assistant, because i wanted to make some new config choices.
I tried to move home folders to the new server, but it seems i'm stuck with permissions issues.
Basically i want to move users home directories from the LS to the SLS, but after being copied, the permissions are altered to those of the admin of Snow Leopard. I found a lot of post's of migrating local accounts to server, but i did'nt find any addressing my problem.
How can i copy home folder stefaang to SL so that stefaang has all the appropriate rights?

If every user has admin rights then they may be able to muck with settings and files in a way you don't want.
Migrate user homes using "ditto -rsrc /oldpath/Users /newpath/Users (or whatever suits your needs)"
The key is that the UID of the user accounts on the new server must match the UID from the old server.
You can specify a UID when you create the account.
If you migrate user accounts the UID's will match.

Will converting to Mobile home folder overwrite existing home folders?

Hi I have a client who uses entourage 2004 and the users databases (10Gb typical) are stored on the server in their home folders. I was thinking of switching them to mobile home folders so they had a cached copy on their local Mac to improve performance.
Will turning on mobile home folders overwrite any existing data?
Thanks,

Hi I have a client who uses entourage 2004 and the users databases (10Gb typical) are stored on the server in their home folders. I was thinking of switching them to mobile home folders so they had a cached copy on their local Mac to improve performance.
Will turning on mobile home folders overwrite any existing data?
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How does one connect to a Snow Leopard server using mobile home folders using Leopard client? I am not finding the join preference in the account system preference.
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In the Utilities folder, Open Directory Utility and join there, make sure your network interface's DNS server is pointed to the Open Directory server.

Mobile Home problem with Magic Triangle

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When I tested it today, with Airs running 10.7.4, here is what happened.
When the system was on the network, it would log a user in, ask to create the mobile account, and successfully create it. Once logged in they were limited to the application preferences that I set on the server. I considered this a complete success.
When I disconnected them from the network, I had expected that they would still be able to log in and the system would fuction the same way with the exception that they would not sync their changes until they were back on-site.
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When the same user trys to log in it says the AD server is unavailable and then logs them in anyway. However, once they are at the desktop, none of the permissions are in place. They can go to the app store, or do anything else they feel like. Once they are back on the network, all the server based preferences reappear and lock the system down.
So my questions are:
1. Should a mobile account based system compain that it cant find the AD domain when offsite?
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3. How can I prevent users from simply disconnecitng from the network to bypass all my server based policies?
Hope someone can help

Hi,
I'm having a similar problem with exactly the same setup, our clients are 10.7.4 wired not wireless the OD server is 10.7.4 and the clients are authenticating via an AD 2008 R2 domain.
We've had this scenario in the past running 10.5 and 10.6 without any problems but with 10.7.4 the clients' MCX settings are lost when they're not connected to our network. It seems to only lose the settings applied to user groups but not computer groups.
At this moment in time I don't have an aswer I'm still looking, have you found a solution?
I know configuration profiles are the way forward and in the future I'll move over to them but they don't seem to work that well with PHD's at the moment.
If anyone has any thought on this it would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Jay.

Network home folders: iCloud password question re-appears at every logon

Hello,
Is there any way to enable iMessage and Facetime together with Network home folders. Im using Mavericks server (Directory services enabled) and two Mavericks clients. Every time a user that was using machine A logs on to machine B the iClouds password prompt re-appears and subsequently security questions are sent to iOS devices that a new device was added.
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The more iCloud services are tied into the system, the more you would like to use them; even if you are using network home folders.
Regards,
Thomas

I also have this question.

Mountain lion Server import accounts & mobile home folder

Hello,
I am new to OS X Server and I have two questions.
First here is the situation.
We are a small company with 10ish mac (Mini, iMac & MBP) running.
So far we had the client account on the machines.
I want them to be server hosted from now. I have a dedicated Mini 2012 for such a use. Everything Gigabit connected.
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Additional info: it appears that certificates are not working either: setting up ical: "the certificate for this server was signed by an unknown certifying authority."...

Where are mobile home sync logs found?

Did some searching, came up empty

This is probably too late for the OP, but hopefully someone else will find it helpful.
The problem is ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist.
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This what worked for me.

Migrating Local Users to Network/Mobile Home Directories

Hey Everyone!
A Happy Holiday's to you all! I'm in the midst of building a new system for my new clients. They had nothing but static IP numbers and no actual servers in a 50+ Mac environment. MacBook Pros, G5's and PowerBook G4s up the yang.
What I'm looking to do is migrate as seamlessly as possible, all of the existing local users to network users and then some of those network users will become mobile accounts. I have Open Directory authenticating properly so...
Here's my plan:
1) Finish creating new builds for the MacBook Pro's, the G5s, and the PowerBook G4s.
2) Create the users in OD and assign them to groups for permissions.
3) Drag and drop entire home directory from each computer to a shared folder on my OD Server.
From here I want to run chown, I'm guessing, to change the user:group for the home folders I copied over so that they match the ID's created by OD. I figure when I do that, then I can simply replace the OD created home folders in my server's Users folder with the copied and permission modified home directories from each local user.
My guess is that would be the fastest way to migrate the users to the network.
My question is are the terminal commands I need to run on each folder in order to make this as seamless as possible?
chown -R username:newgroupname /~path to copied local home directory
Is that syntax right?

The command is correct!!!
But my quess is if you use ACL's to set the permissions you won't need to run the command on every folder
Best Regards

Best way to migrate local users to the network - move home folders?

Hi everyone,
I am about to set up my Mac mini server (Snow Leopard Server). I have one iMac with three user account on it (local), another iMac that we just bought and my MacBook Pro with my admin account on it (Snow Leopard). So all have Snow Leopard.
What would be the best way to move the three local accounts AND their home folders to the server?
What would be the best way to make my portable user account into a mobile user account on the server?
I am planning to create all users on the server (with the same username and passwords etc.) then move the local home folders from the iMac to the server through some direct wired connection. My concern is with this move - will there be permissions mismatch issue? I am sure there will be as the UID would be different for the same accounts (pre-existing and newly created, eventhough their username and passwords are the same).
Any best practices? strategies?
Does Apple have any documentation on this specific topic? - that is moving local user accounts and their corresponding home folders onto the server?
Thanks much!
Kenneth

Hi again,
I haven't gotten round to it - but may have an alternative route in the mean time: the brand new 27" iMac just arrived, and rather than doing a full 'migration assistant' setup, I am going to try the following:
1. on the new iMac: only create a local Admin account, user name totally unrelated with any other account name;
2. on the server: settle all the network user account settings, portable home directories, managed preferences etc. for each user;
3. on another computer: log on under the corresponding local user account, and copy one's home folder entirely to an external drive - do not use this machine again under this user account;
4. on the new iMac: log in as a network user, make sure the home folder and library syncing works as desired, set some preferences (and check that this gets synced to the server drive); copy the parts of the home folder & library for this user from the external drive - wait until it all gets synced back and forth - and check any permissions, preferences whatever issue (the local account on the other computer is available for cross-checking, just don't change any documents or settings on that one)
5. if all works well on the new iMac: delete this local user account on the other computer.
6. repeat steps 3-5 for each other computer where this user has a local account (one 'old' iMac, one 13" MB) - will also allow to check and filter any duplicate documents which have accumulated over the different machines.
7. create the network accounts for this user on the other computers, and check the syncing etc.
8. repeat for each user (4 in total for us).
I think this might just work, since the new iMac at present has no accounts - so no possible issues with similar account names & passwords etc - and you keep the 'old' local account on the other machine as a safeguard anyway.
Any particular thoughts or comments on this proposed process??
How about permissions: does the copying to an external disk, and then back onto another computers disk solve that??

How do i reconnect mobile account home folders after re-install?

we have problems with our server interfering with the college server. It kept changing our hostname so i had to enable DNS on the second ethernet port on xserve which prevented it from changing it but now is messing up the network as our server is being used for dns by the rest of the college. So i either need to restrict our dns to only answer queeries from specific addresses i.e my laptop and colleagues and forward all of the rest to another dns server. Or i have to re-install the osx server software and change the name to correspond with their servers given name for our xserve. The problem with re-installing it is that the students have a lot of work in their home folders which i can't loose. But i'm aware that the mobile accounts will be tied to the old domain name. Is their any tips you can give us so that i don't loose their home folders and it will sync back the client machines after i have put the new domain name on. I'm also aware that you can export the usernames from workgroup manager but not the passwords. Is there anything else i need to do so that i can just reconnect their accounts to the existing home folders after re-install? In other words i need to know the easiest way to do this to reduce dissruption to students files? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Also will i have to delete the students local folders on their imacs and sync back from the server again?

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Erase mobile account home folders script

does anyone know of a script that will erase all of the mobile account home folders on local machines while keeping the admin and other local account folders in place??

Here is a script I've used to flush all Portable Home Directories (Run as "root" user) --> http://homepage.mac.com/applesd/downloads/flush-phds-script.zip

Mobile Accounts not copying home folders to local machine

Having recently upgraded my MacBook to 10.5 (and having a 10.5 server) I have noticed an error with mobile accounts. My account has not synced for a couple of weeks and I have checked all the directory settings and cannot see any errors.
I've removed all directory services and rebooted, put them back and it will create a mobile account but nothing is being copied to the local hdd. So basically it is functioning like a network account rather than a mobile one.
This works fine on our 10.4 clients but having tried different users on my 10.5 system it does the same....creates the account, mounts the server but does nothing else.
This means when you sync it says its complete but does nothing...its like its lost permissions to the folder on the server but that seems very odd.
Anyone else had issues with 10.5? We have an AD server with our users and a 10.5 server with OD replicating AD and holding the home folders.

Are you still ahving this issue?
Would you do like geekinit in this thread and post some partial screen grabs (although is problem included Windows server Active Directory and profile Manager which I will get up to soon.)
Unable to deploy home folder mobility settings through an Apple MDM server
Did you create a fileshare for Local Network accounts to put their stuff
If so where is OS X server?
Did you tell the user in OD to use that fileshare?
Here's a screen grab example
Francois.

Migrating mobile home folders

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