Home directory osx server

I planning on using osx server to manage users accounts. Once I setup the user accounts on the server I will have to move the data in the local accounts to another home folder on the local Mac that has the same user name as the one on the server. What is the best way to move user data on a Mac between user accounts? On OSX Server I am going to have the users account home folder point to the local home folder on the Mac.
Any thoughts on the best way to go about having a Managed user account on a sever and have the data storage be on a local Mac.

Sounds like you're talking about a Mobile user account, where the home directory is stored on a server, but synced automatically to the client machine.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.4/en/c2um.html

Similar Messages

User home directory on server over WAN link

Hello all,
I have a performance question about home directories. The situation is:
- 3 locations, 3 servers (OS X server 10.4.7 (Xserves))
- WAN connections are 1 Mbit/s
- All clients running 10.4.7 (imac G5 1.6/1.8 GHz.)
- User home folders are all located on one of the three servers
Two locations are OD replicas from the first location.
User home folders are located on the server at the location where they work most.
Some users work 4 days at location A, and 1 day at location B or C.
For simplicity let's say I have a user called A, with home directory located on server at location A.
User A is now working one day at location B. User logs in successfully, but everything is very slow (1 Mbit WAN link).
I really like the flexibility of server based home folders. Also the fact that there is no data on the local machines is very much appreciated (physical security, backup etc.). I was thinking about portable home directories, but that won't solve my problem, given the fact that all data needs to be copied once from location A to B (especially when users use different machines on the other location). Data will be stored on the local machines as well in that situation (but can be synchronized).
It is of course possible to synchronize data from server A to B and C when a user logs off (rsync). Is there any way to tell OD that it should pick a user home directory based on the location where that specific user logs in? Disk space isn't really an issue.
The performance is really awful using a 1 Mbit connection and upgrading the connections is not really an option (well maybe I could get it to 2 Mbit, but that won't solve this problem).
Thanks for any advice.
Jordi
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

How about firewire harddrive or ipod-based home directories which the users could take to different offices with them?
If not... I really think that your best option is to work to get Portable Home Directories working. Remember it is only the data that has been changed that is synced each time. You mention you are concerned about backup, but this will be done from the server after user data is sync'd there. The physical security worries can be taken take of by using open firmware passwords.
Is there any way to tell OD that it should pick a user home directory based
on the location where that specific user logs in?
By using DHCP at each site to bind the clients you can force them to use the Home Diretory you specifiy at each site. But this sounds like a sync & backup nightmare to me and don't forget rsync will mangle your acl's and other meta data.
hth,
b.

Permissions Issue saving to Home Directory on Server 2008 R2

I have a lab of 10.5 iMacs connected to our domain through active directory. When the students log in, their network home directories (hosted on Win Server 2008 R2) mount on the desktop. The students are having permissions issues when saving to these directories. For some odd reason, the students can save files created in Word, but not files created in Excel. We have separate shares on the same server for our teachers - Hand In and Hand Out. The students are unable to copy files from the Hand Out folders to their home directories because they get the same permissions error message.
Last year as a work around to this issue we gave the students full control of their home directories. We do not want to continue doing this because then the students can change the permissions on their home directories. The standard in our district is to give the students "modify" control.
We have 10.4 macs set up in this exact same manner and we do not have any permissions problems. This only seems to affect the 10.5 macs. Thanks!

Hi Rolf,
I understand the confusion.
So the answers to your questions first.
It was suggested to me to get CR2008 but I heard 2008 will not be supported much longer, is that correct?
Patch support ends for CR 2008 on December 31, 2015.
If I install 2008 will I use a different reference in my application instead of 11.5.3700.0 ?
Yes. Crystal Reports 2008 is version 12.0 product and all CR 2008 assemblies are of 12.0 version. So your references would be 12.0
What needs to be installed on the 2008 server and what will the IIS setting be (running as 32 bit)?
.CR 2008 runtimes (of appropriate SP) should be installed on the server. CR 2008 only has 32 bit runtimes so make sure IIS is running under 32 bit.
Morever,
Few things to do while migrating on dev machine.
- Open the project in either VS 2005 or VS 2008.
- Remove all earlier references (11.x).
- Assign new CR references (12.0) and recompile the app.
- Not to forget, upgrading your reports to CR 2008 by opening them in CR 2008 designer and checking if everything is working as expected.
- Bhushan
Senior Engineer
SAP Active Global Support
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Got Enhancement ideas? Try the SAP Idea Place
Getting started and moving ahead with Crystal Reports .NET applications.

Home Directory on server or client?

I work for an architects firm (about a dozen people) and we currently keep user accounts/home directories on individual machines, although we have a server. What are the advantages, besides being able to log into your account from any machine, in keeping the home directories/user accounts on the server?
And what are the disadvantages? And what about laptop users?
Or should I be looking at mobile home directories, in which case I'd ask the same relative questions as above?

We are an architecture firm also, with a total of 8 employes.
We have network home directories set up (I did not set it up) but have had no problems. We do not have Portable home directories setup, as there is no need. Our boss is the only one that uses a laptop and no need to work from home. It is very handy to have user accounts available at any machine, as there are sometimes when we need to get some repair done on a tower, we just pull an old one out of storage, or move to an empty desk. When we get a new computer, I just image it with our base image, and it s in production in an hour or so.
The main reason for the dir. on the server is due to backups. We nightly backup our entire server to firewire drive then rotate weekly. This gets all user information, email, as well as all of our working data.
As for "intense server usage" our server is a G4 PPC MDD 1.25 Ghz with 1.25 GB of ram running Server 10.4.7. During the day, there area anywhere from 4-7 clients connected to the server, but our CPU stays well under 20%. It only peaks during backups, @ night.
Services running are :AFP, DHCP, NetBoot, NFS, OpenDirectory (Master), and VPN.
We have also setup VPN, so we can work from home, or admin remotely.
Our main files used are Vectorworks files, ranging from 10-50 MB, but some Photoshop files that get large.
Anyway, that is my experience, take what you want. I was thrown into the sysadmin after coming on out of Architecture school, and it is a balancing act to keep the system working while keeping my billable hours high.
Spinner
Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Portable Home Directory WITH a Windows Server/AD and WITHOUT OSX Server/OD

Hi All,
I'm pushing the envelope here a bit, but here's the situation:
- Windows 2003 AD Servers
- Windows 2003 Home Directory File Server
- MacOS X 10.5.2 client (on an Intel iMac)
Everything works fine (once you add the AD server's IP/domain name into /etc/hosts and remove the dashes from the name of the client you're trying to join anyway). I can login, logout, run all the Apps I need. Get fine throughput from the server.
The problem comes when I try to turn on Portable Home Directories (Mobile Accounts) for users of the client. I believe the client is trying to use "Server Side File Tracking for Mobile Home Sync", and so is trying to SSH into the Windows machine. This, perhaps unsurprisingly, is not working.
Is there any way to turn this off without using Open Directory (even there it seems to be part of Server Admin General Prefs and not Managed Preferences)?

Portable Homes work just fine with non-Apple servers. It just that you will not get the performance improvements of 10.5 server's "Server Side File Tracking for Mobile Home Sync".
If Portable Homes are not working for you file a bug with Apple.

Home directories not fully created - AD with OSX server

Hope this makes sense.
I'm setting up a network in a school. We've an Xserve running Mac OS X Server 10.6.4. So that students can move seamlessly between our windows network and this, we've extended the AD schema and have the Server bound to AD. Clients are running 10.6.4, bound in a triangle with the Mac Open Directory and AD. So far, so good, all works fine.
I've been able to set preferences and network home paths with no major issues and scripted to get around problems with using iMovie. However as we've been awaiting some replacement hard drives to set up a new RAID, the home paths have been set to the share automatically created for Users - so afp://SERVER/Users
Now our new hard drives have turned up. The RAID is setup and working. I've created a new folder to store home paths - just to test with one user initially. I shared this path 'StaffData', enabled it for automount via afp, in protocol I've enabled guest access for afp. I copied the permissions set for the original /Users directory we were using. In WGM I've changed the home path for this user to afp://SERVER/StaffData, saved, then rebooted the client.
When I then login with this user it created the top level home directory - afp://SERVER/StaffData/USERNAME - and then a subfolder for /Library and /Desktop. No other folders are created (Music, Movies, Photos, Documents are all missing). I'm able to get it to generate Music when I load iTunes, but the same doesn't happen for iMovie or iPhoto.
I'm guessing its a permissions issue? When I switch the home folder back to the server's /User directory it creates all the home folders without any issues. Can anyone point me in the direction of a solution to this?

Yep, I always get an error "The home directory could not be created because an error occurred". Always had that, even on the original /Users share that worked.
Kind of found a way around, have written a script to run at login that checks to see if Pictures, Movies, etc folders are present, and if it doesn't it just makes a new directory with that name. It's a bit of a bodge, but seems to still work. Would still love to have another proper fix eventually, but for the time being it's solved the immediate problem I had!
Thanks for your advice.

Adobe CC with OSX server

We used the Adobe Creative Suite for a long time in a situation where users login through on open directory osx server.
It worked fine until we started to use Adobe Creative Cloud. We use the Enterprise version.
Computers are very slow now, especially Indesign crashes a lot and can sometimes not even be opened anymore.
Has anybody experienced the same problems?
Regards,
Martin

Martin,
Have you made any progress on this issue or found out anymore about running CC in a server environment? I am researching the same thing now and can't find straight answers.
Thanks,
Thomas

File and Directory Maintenance on OSX Server

Are there any special considerations for using file and directory maintenance utilities such as Disk Warrior or TechTool, etc. when dealing with OSX Server, or can it be handled just like any other volume.
We have all of our data and our user home directories on the server and I would like to run some miantenance on them.
Thanks.

I am no expert on disk utilities.
Personally, I just have a separate 5G partition with a minimal OSX which I boot from once a month (or before a server update) and run Disk Repair & Repair Permissions from.
As far as I know, there is nothing going on on the server that is not going on on a 'normal' OSX machine (at file level mode). The OSX unix offering is miles from the previous OS9 model where the likes of Norton was almost mandatory. The built-in 'periodic' scripts and disk utility 'repair' (see "man fsck" in Terminal) all run at unix level, and have done for years, even before Apple II days!
Although I have both Disk Warrior & TechTool, I don't use them except in an 'emergency' (otherwise called: "try anything").
I would be interested in any other comments though.
-david

Open Directory Migration from Mac OSX Server 10.4.11 to 10.8?

I manage an old (2004) G5 Xserve still successfully running OS X 10.4.11 with about 450 users in the Open Directory. I just purchased a Mac mini Server which will run OSX Server 10.8. I want to migrate all the user accounts from the old G5 Xserve to the new Mac Mini server. Can someone spell out the step-by-step process or point me to a document that can help me. I have searched through many of the apple discussion forum threads and Apple Server migration docs, but have not found a clear path to follow to get the old OSX 10.4.11 user accounts onto the new OSX 10.8 Mac Mini server.
The G5 server does not serve mail, print, or any other services other than the user accounts (home directories) for the users.
Help!!! Thanks.
John

If you don't mind clearing ser passwords, then I would export users from 10.4 and import into 10.8
There are some issues with service ACLs in doing this, but its still the fastest process.
If users are allowed to set their own PW, the you give provide preset pw's (either unique or common) and a URL to allow users to reset their PW.
If you need to retain passwords, what I would do is clone the 10.4 server, then upgrade it all the way to 10.8 then archive OD from that and import into a clean-install of 10.8 server.
Whataver you do, don't rely on a 10.4 to 10.8 migration, you'll want a clean 10.8 install.
The offline 10.4 -> 10.8 would allow you to retain PWs, but it creates alot of extra work for you.

OSX server open directory users and logic

Hi guys,
Can anyone shed light on this issue, I can't be the 1st person to encounter it. We have a lab with 10 emacs, plus a OSX Xserve, which is set up as a Open Directory Master, the students log in to the workstations through the xserve.
When they try and run logic, we get a load of permission errors, I have tried changing the ownership and permissions to read write everyone, but it doesn't help, has anyone got a fix for this problem

I am assuming you are not using network home directories here, purely using open directory for logging in right? Logic does not play well over a network, but using OSX server for managing users should NOT affect being able to run logic locally on a machine. If you are using network home directories for users then this WILL be a problem. For example, you will get permission errors when trying to record something.

Apache Directory on OSX Server for Windows PC's???

Is it possible to use Apache Directory Server as a service to provide Profiles, Home Shares, Individual Configurations, etc to Windows PC's as OSX Server does not support Windows Operating System after 10.7
Any suggestions would be great!!
Thanks

I have not setup a Samba4 system myself but I have found the following how-tos for you. I have used Ubuntu Server myself. The main difference between Ubuntu Server and client is that the Server does not have a GUI interface installed as standard. This is in this case a good idea as it reduces the processor and memory requirements. I would strongly advise going this route i.e. a CLI only interface.
First here is the official Samab4 setup instructions
http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba_AD_DC_HOWTO
Now some user examples of Ubuntu Server setups
http://www.matrix44.net/cms/notes/gnulinux/samba-4-ad-domain-with-ubuntu-12-04
http://www.darklab.co.uk/2013/01/15/creating-a-samba-4-active-directory-primary- domain-controller-on-ubuntu-12-04-1-server/
http://paulcolfer.ie/os/linux/samba-4-domain-controller-on-ubuntu-server-12-04/
You can download a pre-built Ubuntu Server image for use with VirtualBox from here
http://virtualboxes.org/images/ubuntu-server/
You will still need to configure it and install the Samba components but at least Ubuntu Server itself will be already installed for you.

Mountain Lion Server: Network users Home directory mount problems

I am having several problems with my server after a latest name change of the server via Server.app. (A first name change made problems, after that I have been trying to repair, changing the name a few times more. With latest name change, I also changed the server name itself from Foo to Bar while changing domain name from domain.com to bar.domain.com after which I repaired DNS so it covers the whole domain.com domain).
The users in the Network directory think their home directory is on afp://domain.com/Users, but the server is now called bar.domain.com. /Network/Servers/bar.domain.com does not exist on the server. Client machines (with mobile home directories) are now able to sync, because I added an A record for domain.com to DNS (not nice, but does the job, or more specifically that job). Also on the clients, I can go to a SHARED folder in Finder with the name Bar and go to Users and see al the home directories there. But:
bash-3.2# ls -l /Network/Servers/
total 4
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Apr 14 11:14 domain.com
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Apr 14 11:14 foo.domain.com
bash-3.2# ls -l /Network/Servers/*
/Network/Servers/domain.com:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Apr 14 11:14 Users
/Network/Servers/foo.domain.com:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Apr 14 11:14 Users
bash-3.2# ls -l /Network/Servers/*/Users
/Network/Servers/domain.com/Users:
ls: Users: Input/output error
/Network/Servers/foo.domain.com/Users:
ls: Users: Input/output error
So, on the server looking for folder ~user does not work. It wants to go to afp://domain.com/Users/user but that is unreachable.
Any tips on what I can do except do a clean rebuild of the server (again)?
(One of the obvious problems is that the Realm of OD is still called foo.domain.com, the origin of my problems has been that the first name change from foo.domain.com to domain.com (ill-advised, I know) failed — partly).
What I'd like to know is:
- where is it determined which servers end up in /Network/Servers?

Som additional info:
Other machines can mount afp://foo.domain.com/, afp://domain.com/ and afp://bar.domain.com/, but the server itself cannot mount them via Finder.

OD users cannot log on without server home directory

I am new to OD and am trying to configure a working setup for a few Macs on the network. The server is set up as an OD master, and while we are running Active Directory, the Mac server is not integrated into the AD network. DHCP and DNS are handled by the server that provides AD.
I have set up a few test users and bound a Mac to the OD server for testing. I've found that if I don't specify a home directory for a particular user in workgroup manager (i.e. I just leave it at (none)), the user cannot log on to the bound Mac. The log in window begins to slide as if it is accepting the password, then stops and shakes and brings me back to the login window without any error message. If I specify a home directory on the server, it will then accept the username and password, show that I am logging in as said user, then display the message, "You are unable to log in to the user account [user] at this time. Logging into the account failed because an error occurred."
I'm guessing the error message relates to a permissions issue with the way the home directories are set up. But honestly, I'd rather the users just have their home directories stored locally rather than on the server. How do I configure it so that the users are able to log on and their home directories are stored locally?
Thanks in advance for any assistance that can be provided!

After playing around with the system some more, I found that I had to explicitly specify the local home directory. I set it to /Users/ and everything seems to be working now.

Is there a file in which OSX stores the home directory path, where to find it and how to edit it in Windows 7?

Hi everyone,
I have a SSD with the System and Apps on it, and another HDD containing the home directory.
I made the mistake to rename the Volume the home directory is on whilst being logged in, the system reacted accordingly and prompted some Password requests,
and I then tried to choose the newly named Volume in the Advanced options dialogue in Users & Groups (example seen below).
I tried to change the name back to what it was in the hope of it all being back to normal again, but instead it's completely messed up now and I cannot login anymore (prompt: "You are unable to log in to the user account "xxxx" at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred")
All I can do now is boot my Windows 7 and try to fix this from there, I can read/write the OSX Volumes thanks to MacDrive.
So now the big question is:
IS THERE A FILE containing the path to the home directory (red arrow)?
IF SO, WHERE can I find it?
And is there a way to edit it in Windows?
My guess is that if I rename the Volume, AND change this path to something identical again, it might solve the issue.
Thanks!

Download THIS
 Cheers, Tom

Trying to limit a user on OSX Server to one directory for FTP

Hey there everybody,
I'm trying to set up a client FTP for a new mac mini running OSX Server (Mavericks). FTP is enabled and I am able to get and put files but, the server is going to be used for a client services company and we will need to use it to transfer files back and forth without allowing access to the whole machine. The core issue is when I FTP in as a user I can still move around and see folders and files. I would like to create a user that can only see one folder or directory and only get / put files to that one place. Can't seem to find any similar posts, though I would assume this is fairly common.
Huge thanks in advance!

Hello again,
I have tried sending messages from my webmail account in another domain and get the following reply:
This is the Postfix program at host www.patrickwgill.com.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.
For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.
The Postfix program
<[email protected]>: Command time limit exceeded:
"/usr/bin/cyrus/bin/deliver"
Reporting-MTA: dns; www.patrickwgill.com
Arrival-Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 14:05:25 -0500 (EST)
Final-Recipient: rfc822; [email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Command time limit exceeded:
"/usr/bin/cyrus/bin/deliver"
So, it appears to be just hanging for some reason and timing out. Any ideas? I really appreciate your help.

Home directory osx server

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