How to share an autofs mounted drive between users?

Question

Hi all,
I've spent a frustrating (albeit informative) couple of days trying to share my ITunes library between two users on the same MacBook Pro. I've managed to share the iTunes library files themselves by placing the iTune.xml in the /Users/Shared folder and creating aliases in each user's /Users/username/Music folder. However, it's getting the iTunes library to recognise the remote media location thats the problem. All the iTunes media files are on a Synology DiskStation NAS which I am trying to mount in such a way that it can be seen the same way - regardless of which user is logged in.
Firstly, I tried mounting the DiskStation/itunes folder and placing a link to the mount in each user's Login Items, but that never seems to give me a persistent mount.
Secondly, I tried creating an /etc/auto_afp file to specify the mount location and using the /etc/auto_master file to mount the Diskstation/itunes folder to /Users/Shared/itunes.  This works great - but only for the first user to log in. When I look at the permissions for the mounted share that this creates I see that it is owned by 'User1'. When User2 logs in they cant access the share due to a lack of permissions, so when they start up the shared iTunes it complains that it cant see any of the media files!
Does anyone know  a way to create a mount using autofs that can be mounted by multiple users and give all of them the permission to read/write to it?

Answer 1

Niel's instructions don't cover you 100%.  You want to keep things on a different drive and there won't be a "shared" folder there. That's only on your main drive.  You also have to migrate media and/or your library to a different drive using a special process or you will end up breaking all your music links.
You need to clearly state what you want to share.  You can share just media or you can share your whole library structure.  Sharing only media is safest but if you share a common media pool you will all have to keep each other appraised of additions (and deletions, because those too will affect everybody) from the pool.  You have to be pretty trusting and coordinated on this.  Alternatively you can make it so others can copy your media but you will each have your own copy of the file so if somebody else wants to change the name on a track it doesn't do it to the copy you use too.  Of course this takes up the most space but is the safest.  Which migration procedure to do will depend upon your answers to this section.
Finally, I hope you have a backup plan implemented on this.  Nobody will be happy when that external drive fails and it all disappears.