AFP and SMB Home Folders

Has anybody managed to find a way of using both AFP home folders and SMB folders?
What I am trying to do is have both setup on a students/staff login so that they can access there windows based home directory and also access the Mac home directories for things like Aperture, iphoto garage band etc which require a lot of storage room. We Limit Student storage to 150mb so we need to be able to use our current promise storage to store the home folders.
I have read a few forums with scripts on but i can't seem to get them to work.
I have got a working magic (golden) Triangle I can login to the any Mac with the any AD login and it works I can see there windows based home folder.
Any Help would be much appreciated.
Our Current setup is:
Mac OS X Server (xServe) 10.7.5 running OD as Master and bound to AD
Mac Clients 10.7.5
Windows 2008R2 Domain Controller

How do you resolved the problem?

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Difference between afp and smb

I'm running OS X server 10.5.8. unlimited license with only file sharing enabled.
When a large number of users (more than 7 or 8) try to log on the server at the same time, the server goes AWOL. A few users get on and that's it. When I check the server preferences, file sharing has turned off by itself. When I try to restart it, it just turns off again. After waiting a while, I can turn it on again, or it'll turn on again by itself after a good long while.
This is in the setting of a computer lab. The users get on via afp. Would smb work better? What's the difference between the two?
I'll appreciate any help or suggestions on this.
Hans

When I check the server preferences, file sharing has turned off by itself. When I try to restart it, it just turns off again
That's clearly not normal. What do the logs have to say?
The users get on via afp. Would smb work better? What's the difference between the two?
AFP was designed by Apple and is the native file sharing protocol in Mac OS X.
SMB was designed by Microsoft and is the native file sharing protocol in Windows.
At one time Macs would use AFP, Windows systems would use SMB. That line is now blurred by the fact that Mac OS X can talk both AFP and SMB, and Windows machines can be persuaded to talk AFP.
There are some under the hood differences and in general your Mac clients should use AFP if possible. Whether SMB is more or less reliable in your case depends on why the server is having these issues in the first place - if it's a resource issue (i.e. not enough memory/cpu/etc.) then enabling SMB is likely to make things worse since the server now has an additional process to keep running.

Which is the better one, between AFP and SMB protocol for files' transporti

Hi,
I'm a newbie here and I have a question for MAC AFP protocol.
For files' transporting, MAC os has AFP protocol, and it also supports SMB protocol. Is there any difference between these two protocols?
Is the AFP protocol better than the SMB protocol , for files' transporting between two MACs, MACs and Windows,or two Windows?

AFP is preferred for Mac -> Mac transfers. It's the native Mac protocol and easiest to maintain.
Windows systems typically don't understand AFP so it's not an option for them. For Windows transfers you should use SMB.
The Mac can talk SMB, too, so if you had to choose only one, and you have Windows clients on your network, then SMB would be the way to go.
You are not limited to running just one, though. It's perfectly valid to have the server talk both AFP and SMB at the same time, letting each client use the protocol it prefers.

OS X and Windows SMB home folders=SLOW

Okay,
Here's the rundown of our mac lab setup:
14 Mac minis (late 2006, newly imaged with Mavericks and Office 2011)
2 DNS/AD DC's (dc1.domain.local - Windows 2003R2, dc2.domain.local - Windows 2008R2)
A 3rd Windows 2003R2 server (fs1.domain.local) used for file shares and home directories
Macs joined to AD using the built-in plugin (Force local home is unchecked; Mac home directories redirected to the user's network home folder)
Macs bind to AD quite quickly using the built-in plugin. However, logging in takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes, browsing users' home folders, opening files, and using any productivity software that has Autosave (Word 2011, Pages '13), everything slows to a crawl--usually a spinning beachball of death for an extended period of time. The issue gets worse when more users are logged in at once, to the point the lab becomes almost unusable.
I've scoured the web trying just about everything I came across regarding this issue (used the NTLM fix on the servers, disabled IPv6 on the Macs, etc.)
I have been patient with this issue waiting for Mavericks to come out, hoping to resolve it. At this point, it seems easier to just Boot Camp into Windows 7; at least then I can trust everything to work! I'm trying to advocate Mac use in our school, but this experience has not helped at all!
Any one out there with similar setups? Anything else I should try?

I believe I'm seeing similar behavior as well with Mac Mini's running 10.8.5 connecting via SMB to a share provided by a Windows Server 2008 R2 host.
If a Microsoft Word document is opened (using Word 2011) from the network share, is then left open, then (we presume) after the computer has gone to sleep and woken back up, when the user tries to interact with Word, they see the spinning beach ball for about 45 seconds.

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.

Access to a server by both afp and smb at the same time

I'm sure that there's an answer to this, but it's not obvious to me. I have a series of macbooks and various linux servers that I use for file storage. Some of the older linux boxes share via smb, but I'd like to move to afp, primarily as I think that it ought to be easier to administer.
Before a do a migration, how do I mount remote shared filespace on the same server with different protocols? Finder seems happy to authenticate as either AFP or SMB user to a specific machine, but not both at the same time - I only get one server in the left hand pane of finder.
Is it possible to get dual access to work? Do I just use different IP addresses for the server?
cheers
Tim

Ok great, thanks v much
Dave

Auditing for AFP and SMB

Hello,
I had post this same question before, but it has been archived. So I bring this back:
We need to implement Auditing in File Sharing level. H
Does anyone knows a tool besides the server logs?
We prefer an opensource one, since Casper costs.
Regards
Kostas

Kostas B wrote:
Hello,
I had post this same question before, but it has been archived. So I bring this back:
We need to implement Auditing in File Sharing level. H
Does anyone knows a tool besides the server logs?
We prefer an opensource one, since Casper costs.
Regards
Kostas
The only tools I have seen merely 'analyse' (i.e. don't really) and/or summarise the information in the Apple logs. As the Apple logs are almost completely useless for this purpose they do not help at all.
For those unaware, the Apple logs for AFP and most other services record activity like this.
1. User logs in, this is time stamped in the log and lists the user name and the MAC address of the computer logged in from.
2. User then does activity on the AFP file server, this activity is also time stamped but only lists the MAC address and not the user name. Every single file open command, etc. can be recorded which if your using network home directories results in a vast number of entries.
The result is that if you want to find who deleted a file, you need to find the log entry listing the file deletion and then laboriously read back through potentially tens of thousands of lines in the log(s) until you find the matching login for that MAC address so you can then determine WHO deleted the file rather than which computer. As these entries can span across more than one actual log file due to the logs being rotated when a size limit is reached this is a nightmare to do.
In other words, the logs are almost completely useless for auditing.
I have a law firm also looking for a similar solution.
The best I can say so far would be to stop using Mac OS X as a file server and switch to something else which offers proper auditing.
Note: This situation is a result of Apple not addressing the Enterprise market historically - with some justification. It would still be nice to have a solution especially now that Enterprise is taking Apple (a little bit) more seriously.
PS. To make things worse, I am currently implementing a Mac terminal server, this will have multiple logins running at the same time which will be in turn logging in to a Mac AFP server. As these sessions are all running on the same physical (terminal) server, as far as the AFP server is concerned they will all have the exact same Ethernet MAC address! This will make it literally impossible to tell which user did an operation using Apple's current feeble logging.

Questions about AFP and SMB network drives

Is there a major speed difference between the two? At my school I am given network drive space, and my drive seems accessibly via afp:// and not via SMB.
I transferred a 30MB file once and afp:// transferred at about 1 MB a second. This seemed about as fast as when I used OS 9 and connected to afp:// servers.
Also can one access a afp:// drive on a Windows 98 computer without third party software (PC MacLan)? The It director has been trying to help my Windows 98 laptop also gain access to my drive, but everything he has told me to try has failed. Perhaps because Windows 98 cant connect with Appletalk over TCP/IP servers.
Thanks for the help.
If this message belongs in another forum, please let me know.
John

I am on a T1 and using the ibooks network card.
Back in 2005 I was on a Performa 6360 and also used a network card (100 base T) on a T1.
Its strange why the ibook would be no faster than the performa for transferring files.
So can Windows 98 connect to afp:// servers?
john

AFP and SMB sharepoint in AD environment

We are currently migrating user accounts to authenticate to AD to make life easier for our students as we use both Macs and PCs on our network. We have AD working using our XServe to host home directories using AFP. When a user logs on using a Mac they can access the AFP share without problem. What we would like to achieve is users logging on using a Mac to use AFP on the sharepoint and PC users using the same sharepoint running on SMB.
We have set our ‘users’ sharepoint up using both SMB and AFP but can’t get this working; I remember seeing a method using dsconfigad to direct PC users to SMB and Mac users to AFP a while back but can’t remember where.
Any help would be greatly appreciated if someone can point me in the right direction
Thanks in advance,
Dan

Open Console app and Click the button to show the log file list.
There are various locations and they will be listed in the list. I'm not sure how to turn on more logging. Many of the config files for various services are in /etc.

Active Directory Authentication, AFP Home Folders in the wrong place!

Hi,
I've had this problem off and on... that is, it comes and goes, so I'm not really able to effectively troubleshoot it. My setup is this:
-Xserve G5, Mac OS X Server 10.4.7
-OD Master bound to AD for authentication
-Hosts AFP and SMB shares, all stored on Xserve RAID
On the RAID, I have a folder called Users (/Volumes/XserveRAID/Users) that is shared via AFP. The system Users folder (/Users) is not shared. In fact, nothing at all on the root drive is shared. All share points are on /Volumes/XserveRAID/. All Mac users' home directory profiles are pointed to \\servername\Users\username (in Active Directory Users and Computers application on our domain controller). Their home directories mount automatically when they log into their client machines (also bound to AD).
The problem is this; at seemingly random times, a user's home folder will all of a sudden be created in /Users on the server, and it will not use the /Volumes/XserveRAID/Users/ folder. I will clean out /Users every now and again, but the errant home folders show back up. The only folder that should be in /Users is the local admin.
Since /Users is not even shared, how is it doing this? Why is it that sometimes the /Volumes/XserveRAID/Users share is used (I know this because there are users' files in their folders in the proper place) and sometimes it's going to /Users? Any ideas? Thanks in advance!!
Going slightly mad,
Jason

Hi there,
Just wanted to share my make-due solution.
I have setup the automount sharepoint at "/Data/Home".
When I logged in or tried to use createhomedir in terminal, nothing happened but users could login (even though there was no home folder on the sharepoint for them).
I have created the Home Folders manually "/Data/Home/username" and then logged in again. When I did this it created two folders in the home dir:
-Desktop
-Library
The other icons related to the home dir on the Dock remain big "?" 's.
So I manually added them and assigned them the propper rights.
Now users can log in without any problems, network home folders are working.
So essentially I got thing s to work, luckily I have only a hand full of Mac Users, Imagine having a user base in the hundreds !
Thinking about this really makes me want to know how I can fix this problem, I have a make shift solution but this really isn't the way to go. When I use the createhomedir command, it says "creating homedir on servername.domain.net" and it seems to be busy for like 20 - 30 secs, but after that nothing has changed.
I've checked all possible locations on the server (i thought maybe it might have made local accounts on server by accident, but it didn't.)
If anyone has ANY idea, please share.
Thx!!
Have a nice day

Steps to upgrade and move server and home folders to new box

Hi All,
Can anyone outline the steps I should take to move my 1200 users from a G4 PowerMac Server 10.4.11 to an Intel Mac 10.5.6 and move home folders to a new drive on the new box? Can it be as simple as using the migration tool and connecting up the firewire cable? And what about the fact that the IP will need to be the same?
Many thanks for any hints,
...Tom

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as using the Migration Assistant.
Please refer to the following guide from Apple:
http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/Upgradingand_Migrating_v10.5_2ndEd.pdf
You are migrating from 10.4 to 10.5, so read that section carefully. There are still quirks in the 2nd edition of this guide, where it tells you to do extra stuff, but it won't hurt.
If you have another IP address available, use that in combination with a temporary hostname until everything is setup. Afterwards, turn down the old server and use the changeip command on the new server.
Schedule your migration to a long window of opportunity when the least amount of people are going to need it - like Friday evening (then take Monday off).

Stop Auto Mount of SMB Home Folder

For awhile, I tried SMB home folders for network users. This worked poorly, so i went back to using AFP.
However, for most users, their network home folder is now getting auto mounted by SMB at login.
I've checked WGM manager to make sure they have AFP homes and that no SMB home is assigned.
I've checked the users control panel to see if there is an automount setup there. Nothing.
Where else could auto mount information be stored and how can I find it to wipe it out?

Normally it would be a matter of changing the server to register the AFP share as an auto mount for user home directories, then you have to use Workgroup Manager to reconfigure each user to select the new share location which should now be listed in the Home tab in Workgroup Manager.
If you only do the first step the user account will still be set to the original settings.
Is this using Open Directory and a Mac file server? The process might be more complicated if your using Windows Active Directory, and typically a Windows server does not do AFP.

OS X Server, AFP and Logic 8

Hi,
I'm looking to buy OS X Server for our school. We run Logic Studio 8 at the moment and currently have a share on a NAS that the users can save their files to (login accounts local to computers.) The problem I had was that Logic files refused to save to the share when the transfer protocol was AFP, yet it worked perfectly over SMB.
I know Server will run user accounts and network Home folders over AFP (which we want to do), so will the Logic files not save if we ran Server? This would be a major problem if it's the case.
The issue with AFP and Logic has always been present, Samba being the only option since as far back as I can remember, yet Apple have done nothing that I know of about this serious limitation.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Andy
PS: If this is better in the Server forum please move the post.

Hi Andy,
Our school is running OS X Server with Network Home Directories. We have no problems with students saving Logic 8 to their respective directories. If your doing sequencing with Virtural instruments and the like this will prove a good system for you. We also have the stock EXS samples served up on an automount groups folder. If you have good network infrastructure you will find that an easy way of maintaining your stock sample libraries for all your students.
We're using OS X 10.4.11 Server with 10.4.11 clients.
Hope this helps
Regards,
James

ACL and smb

I want to do something relatively simple (or so I thought):
- Have one volume shared (firewire drive)
- SMB read-only for that volume for guests or a specific user
- SMB complete access (read/write, etc) for that volume for a different specific user.
That's it, seriously. How can this get done with smb?

I would like to know how to do this as well. I've shared a folder on my MBP with read only permissions for everyone but I can still edit and delete files on the share from my Imac. I know I don't need smb for mac to mac file sharing but after 2 hours of googling and testing suggestions I couldn't get AFP to work.
I'll give a bit of detail about my AFP issue in case its an easier fix. Both machines have Appletalk enabled. On the MBP under system preferences, I have 2 folders, the public folder and a video folder. The public folder was shared by default but the video folder is the only thing I have added. It has afp and smb checked and read only attributes for everyone (including my username). When browsing with the imac to the MBP in finder I only see the public folder but if I connect with my username on the MBP I see my home folder, my root /, my time machine partition on my external drive and these are not shared. I don't see the video folder though. cmd-k smb://mycomputer/video gives the error the volume could not be mounted. So I tried cmd-k smb://mycomputer/video and volia I get a mounted video folder but I'm able to edit and delete files as guest or as me. Any help is greatly appreciated, and apologies if I'm hijacking this thread by posting my afp issue too.

Augmented Home Folders anyone?

We've been using Augmented Home Folders fairly successfully for over a year now. There are some caveats but on the whole it seems to work really well and keeps users SMB home folders clear.
However I seem to have hit a stumbling block. Previously we were binding the stations into AD and OD and the boxes "Force local home directory on startup disk" and "Use UNC path from Active Directory to derive network home location" were both checked in Directory Utility. This was almost perfect because it provided the augmented home folder and also the SMB home folder as a mount. However, with this setup users had no access to the /Users folder but this only affected minor things like iTunes authorisation (we're a school and this isn't really an issue). Unfortunately the new version of the SMART board tools places files inside /Users/Shared and won't run if the user cannot access them. So now I've unchecked both those boxes which provides the augmented home folder AND access to the /Users folder (although I now have to mount the SMB home folder with a script instead).
This also brings issues though. It seems to be the cause of the problem that I wrote about here http://www.afp548.com/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=25308 where MCX preferences are only partially applied (particularly mail account settings). I can confirm that if both of these boxes are checked then all MCX settings are applied properly but if they are unchecked settings are only partially applied. This is true on 10.5.x and 10.6.x as well.
So, I seem to be stuck with either no access to the /Users folder which will prevent certain applications running or MCX preferences not being applied properly. Is anyone else using augmented home folders? Has anyone else experienced similar issues?

Hi,
>>My predecessor set user home folders to NAS device not even in the domain but I couldn`t find the source of it it.
We can try to use Group Policy Preferences Drive Maps extension to delete the drive letter by choosing
Delete action in the drive mapping item, or we can choose Replace
action to delete and recreate mapped drives for users.
Drive Maps Extension
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731729.aspx
Configure a Mapped Drive Item
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770902.aspx
Best regards,
Frank Shen

AFP and SMB Home Folders

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