Lion Server Setup (Network Login/Mobile Account and more...)

Question

Hardware:
     Mac mini Intel Core i7, 2 GHz, 8 GB memory (Server)     x 1
     iMac 21.5" 2.8GHz Intel Core i7, 12 GB memory (Workstation)     x 6
Operating System:
    Mac OS X Server Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)
     Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)
Relevant Software:
     Server.app Version 10.7.4 (1.4.3)
     Workgroup Manager Version 10.7 (400.3)
     Server Admin Version 10.7 (355)
So my head's swimming with "I dunno's" and I've been perusing probably all the wrong threads trying not to sound like a noob and find the literature that will finally lead me to a solution.  This is my first rodeo so make no assumptions about my experience (maybe).
Short Version
I can't login network users.  I get an error "You are unable to log in to the user account "<%short_name%>" at this time.  Logging in using >console tells me this No home directory: <path to home directory>    i.e. /Network/Servers/department.domain.com/Department/Accounts/bbunny
If anyone can point me where to read, I will do so.
Perhaps a longer discussion on how to verify that the proper permissions exist on the share/home directory in question and what those would be.
More detail...
I want to setup a Mac Mini server to have network login accounts stored on the 2nd data volume in a directory we shall call Accounts*.  Here all the "network users/logins" have their home directories, so that when they login at the workstation the idea is the workstation will sync their account and allow them to login, if the server is not available, the hope is I can configure it to allow them to login if they've logged in before and the files will sync when they are able. That being the ideal, I get the impression that for best practices, Apple is discouraging the use of mobile accounts that use Home Sync perhaps because it's reliability has been iffy, please advise.  A windows user might think of this as "roaming profiles" but, if I understand it, its a little more than that.
Note, I do not want to login to the server and actively work on that network share, I want the account to be local and sync'd as needed.  But I want the user to be able to sit at any of the 6 other workstations and see the same documents, emails etc.  Obviously if the server is down, it won't be possible to authenticate, but I think it should have cached credentials that should allow the user to login if the server is down and still go about their work.
This is the small picture...there is a larger picture that involves, parallel virtual machines of Windows Server 2008 R2 on server and and Windows 7 on the client, ical, ichat and perhaps wiki's.
I apologize for the roughness of this question, in the interest of brevity, I have plenty of problems that led me here that I can expound upon if asked.
Also a silly question someone might know the answer too, Why does the login payload settings that I have pushed to a workstation device, sometimes vanish inconsistently upon logout? 

Answer 1

Ok, Some Good news and clearer understanding to disseminate in this post I hope it helps
"the Universe" so I am posting it here in my "ever-the-noob" blog on apple forums.
Problem
What do you do when you get an error when logging into a mobile account setup?
One symptom would be the error message below...
     "You are unable to log in to the user account "<%short_name%>" at this time.
Logging in using >console  You get the message…
     "No home directory: <path to home directory>"
     or
     "You are unable to log in to the user account "<%short_name%>" at this time. 
     Logging in using >console tells me this No home directory: <path to home directory>
Solution
Do the check list…
Short Version
Sever Admin.app > Access (Key Component)
Check Permissions on directories for your file shares. 
(The reason stuff doesn't work especially when you're rebuilding/recovering a server)
File sharing setup (Turned ON, Home sharing Enabled)
Directory Utility > Directory Editor or dscl 
( Do not underestimate the importance of this part!!!!
Use white-gloves when you're handling it though!!! )
Workgroup Manager
(You're poopy "main" interface that really is a "window", not a "door", but maybe Apple likes to do things "Dukes of Hazard" style?)
Long Version
Check Sever Admin.app > Access
Make sure that your user has the "Proper" access.  For me I created a test user from Server.app and saw what access he had as a way to "check myself for a properly created users" and because I think one is kind of on his/her own using WGM and duplicated the same access. (I was a little neater, though and did it with a group, not individual users, that would have been a mess!)
Server Admin.app > Access
Click the "+" sign, sort by UID and Add the imported users  to the following Services…
( You can use a group, but understand when Server.app creates users they get added
individually to each of these groups. )
Address Book
AFP
iCal
iChat
Mail
Profile Manager
SMB
VPN
Check Permissions on directories for your file shares. 
          (That's an understatement) I could go in depth about all the crap I had to read about, I still
          know I am missing a chunk of tech brain when it comes to the particulars. Basically, I boil
          it down to this…
          Permissions require thinking about things first with regards to POSIX permissions... good
          ole ls, chmod, chgrp, chown to the rescue with ugo permissions or the old 755, 600 etc
          stuff.
          Apple's file-sharing access uses this as a starting point to see what the user is allowed to
          access.
          I also needed to use chflags once to unhide a file that I mucked around with using xattr. 
          I still haven't figured out why folders can lose their triangles, but I didn't find out if you cp or
          move them from terminal, the triangles come back in the moved or copied directory.  For a
          minute I thought it was because cp alone doesn't preserve flag attributes, but mv actually
          works by doing a cp that preserves the flags, unless it's a bug.  I dunno.
          This helped me get my file visible again...
          chflags hidden path_to_file
          chflags nohidden path_to_file
          Read up on those manuals, if you're not a terminal type go to apples website
          http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/
          or download...
          http://www.bruji.com/bwana/ I thought that was cool.
          or if you prefer to read the manual in pdf try…
  man -t sharing | pstopdf -i -o ./Desktop/Sharing\ Manual.pdf
          man -t chown | pstopdf -i -o ./Desktop/CHOWN\ Manual.pdf
          man -t chmod | pstopdf -i -o ./Desktop/CHMOD\ Manual.pdf
          man -t chgrp | pstopdf -i -o ./Desktop/CHGRP\ Manual.pdf
          My basic guideline was avoid using ACLs if at all possible, if you try to use them, things
          can get crazy complicated, take notes and plan, baby. If you read above, opening up
          permissions wide is wrong though.  You would restrict permissions tightly to begin with and
          then place ACE (Access Control Entries) to specifically target the rights you want to enable.
          Here's one that's obviously a novice attempt to do this, but since the novice is the only one
          speaking…. here it is, Universe… >:P
          sudo chmod -R +ai "admin allow read,write,delete,file_inherit,directory_inherit,search,list" Department/
          That allowed my admin to do all the things a normal user could do so far… It fixed things for
          my admin, which made me happy.  I really hate having to authenticate or sudo just to see
          the contents of a nested directory.  I could explain it, and even give a few notes on why its
          probably overkill, but I will attempt to look less stupid till "poked".
          There's another command line utility I STILL haven't read, which may bear mentioning
          because…well I haven't read it.  umask (see wikipedia or unix.com)…I worked past my
          problems without going into it so far, but obviously it's there, and it serves a purpose.
          I also found this article helpful…and educational.  :O
          http://www.bresink.de/osx/300321023/Docs-en/pgs/ACL.html
          (          Its enlightening to hear the air whistling between a developer/coder's ears, still it's
                    apparent he has a clear idea what's going on.
                    Ever wonder why when you use get info to check or assign permissions it kind of
                    flakes out and doesn't take?  Read this article!          )
          Second, if you can't obtain the "specific" permissions you need with POSIX, chmod also
          can set the 2nd category of permissions, which windows users may be familiar with
          Access Control Lists (ACLs) and here you get some really fine granularity...messy stuff. 
          All in all, if I felt I could guide you through these murky waters, I would, but I think I'll let
          the professionals weigh in on that one and cut my wall-of-text to ribbons.
          To heuristically check I would connect from a client as one or two of my users and see what
          folders I could mount as a share, armored with an understanding of what ls -le@O * showed
          me in Terminal.
3.)           File sharing setup (Turned ON, Home sharing Enabled)
          Here is an example of using command line sharing utility where each share is properly
          labeled (that took a bit for me to figure out) still this share only enables the AFP share as
          you can see from my flags.
  sudo sharing -a /Volumes/Hard\ Drive/Department/Database -A Database-afp -F Database-ftp -S Database-smb -n Database -s 100 -g 000 -i 10
          Then you do a sudo sharing -l and get back what you just did…
                                          List of Share Points
          name:                    Database
          path:                    /Volumes/Hard Drive/Department/Database
                    afp:          {
                    name:          Database-afp
                    shared:          1
                    guest access:          0
                    inherit perms:          1
                    ftp:          {
                    name:          Database-ftp
                    shared:          0
                    guest access:          0
                    smb:          {
                    name:          Database-smb
                    shared:          0
                    guest access:          0
          If you mess up the sharing command, you may not be paying attention (I wasn't) but there
          are a lot of defaults that Apple will just assume you meant to do anyway and it won't read
          any of your flags, you have to get it right or the flags will be defaulted. 
          (          Basically I could tell I was bombing it for one, I explicitly only wanted afp working, but
                    the default was afp and smb.  So each time I ran sudo sharing -l after I shot my sharing
                    command…back would come smb shared: 1 and I knew that wasn't right.  Also my
                    custom names were defaulting to the name of the directory not the name I had
                    specified.           )
          I like to know what protocol my share is over so when it doesn't work, I know which protocol's
          are connecting. It's not full-proof, but it's a bookmark.  I wish the network browser would
          identify the protocol that its available listed shares are using, because small visual queues
          like that help when you're trying to see what works.  Maybe that's something I should
          investigate via the command line?
          As a note about reading forums, I discovered using command line that "\" is kind of like a
          way of going to next line neatly with long commands…."\ " is a way to insert a space. As you
          can see above where I have a volume with a space in it. 
          Removing shares was a little trickier though, sharing -r Share\ With-space didn't work….I
          had to enclose it in quotes and do "Share With-space" instead. So nooby beware!
          (          *nix users are now rolling their eyes at this tip.          )
          I wasn't sure how you enabled a share for home directories from the command line, maybe its
          in the manual, but I was up to my eyeballs in manuals already so I haven't gone back to
          revisit this question since my work around was to go to Server.app and verify that what I set
          up in the sharing in terminal was being reflected in the gui…sort of my own MVC
          (model-view-controller) check.
4.)           Directory Utility > Directory Editor or dscl 
  Make sure what you see in WGM and Server.app are reflected here….to that question let's
          take a journey where I did some exploring about that.
  Ever really wonder "WHY CAN"T I REMOVE AN OLD HOME DIRECTORY SHARE?!!!"
          Ah, then you will  - LOVE -  this tip…
          (          Provided my testing or yours, later, doesn't prove that in my ignorance I've broken
                    Open Directory. Remember, WHITEGLOVES!!!! but here we get a little dirty.  I think of
                    OD as Apple's Registry, but that's not what it is at all. However, you as the user do have
                    to "****" around in it from time to time.          )
          I scoured the forums and everyone was saying things like "You have to change your server
          role" etc. which seemed a little bit dumb to me (dumb because you're pushing views around
          not "controlling"), and well, yea, that share that I couldn't modify or delete was REALLY
          bugging me.
          Now hmm… Before you do ANYTHING, how do you try to not hurt yourself…in Windows you
          can make a Registry Backup….(yea bad analogy)  In Server Admin.app you can go to your Open
          Directory Service > Archive and Choose a place to Archive your information. (Figure this out by
          yourself, this is getting long…sheesh! It's easy. Restoring is just as easy and painless.)
  Before we can remove the entry we "SEE" in WGM we should make sure no
          one has it selected so as not to "corrupt" the OD db, so in WGM first before going to Directory
          Utility set the Home directory to "None".  (We need to remember to set this to a correct share
          later….Mental Note!!!)
          Now Open Directory Utility
          Method 1
          System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options
          Click the Lock to make changes…
          Authenticate -> click "OK"          (do I REALLY have to step-by-step this?)
          Network Account Sever: • Local Server - click "Edit" button here.
          Open Directory Utility > Directory Editor
          (          Wow, did Apple hire someone from Microsoft?  You'ld think with all their research in to
                    Human Interface Design that's WAY too many clicks to get to something you need.          )
          or
          Method 2 (It's good to know about this directory, neat-o speed-o app's hidden here.)
          Use "Go to Folder" Under Finder > Go > Go to Folder...
  ⇧⌘G /System/Library/CoreServices/ 
          Click "OK"
          and Double click Directory Utility.app
          or
          Method 3
          Terminal
          open /System/Library/CoreServices/Directory\ Utility.app/
          Now From the Directory Editor Pane you will see a Pop-up menu Labeled "Viewing"
          You should glance through this and get to know it.  You should use it to see what
          information is really being stored about your Users, Groups, Mounts…
          We are interested in Mounts, which is where we want to go…and there is the pesky
          mount that you will see reflected in WGM.
          Authenticate, and delete the bugger.
          Quit WGM and restart it.  Voila, bad share is GONE!!!!!
          a.)          First select all my users
          b.)           Then I clicked on the "+" and added the correct share
                    (          Remember, I only showed you the first one we created, this is another and
                              for THIS one you HAVE to go into Server.app and verify that it is set to be
                              available for Home Directories in this case for AFP.          )
                    For the home directory entry you do this...
                    afp://computer.domain.com/Accounts-afp
                    %short_name%
                    /Network/Servers/computer.domain.com/Volumes/Hard\ Drive/Department/Accounts/%short_name%
  %short_name% is a wild card for the short name there are other wild cards check out Apple's
                    Documentation on them.  I lost the link   sorry \<shrug\>
          Interesting dscl commands…(check it out in command line form and compare side by side with
          what you see in the GUI Directory Utility)
          dscl . list /users
          dscl . list /groups
          If you want to output information about each user, though, use readall:
          dscl . readall /users
          dscl . readall /groups
          And if you need to programatically parse said information, use -plist to make your life easier:
          dscl -plist . readall /users
          dscl -plist . readall /groups
          This made a little more direct sense to me, language wise…but fyi "." is kind of a wild card I think so the first
          commands I think look in ALL directories local, Search, LDAP whatever you have.  The command here
          corresponds to the Entry from the Pop-up menu "…in node > Blah…" see GUI of Directory Utility to confirm.
          dscl /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1 -list /Users
          dscl /Local/Default -list /Users
5.)          Workgroup Manager
          Remember this is a utility that is not long for this world.  Apple's Mountain Lion is rumored to fully
          replace it, why? Yea, Apple's making a go at MDM (Mobile Device Management) and somehow
          desktop computers are being pulled/dragged along for the ride.  I have plenty of issues with
          Profile Manager, but I'll likely revisit it in a couple of months and see where we stand.
          Anyway, treat this baby like the bottom rung, because, well it is built like you start your
          foundation here, but it's just a viewer with controlling "tweaks".  Use the other areas to get a solid
          grasp of what is actually going on.  Server.app is where you should create accounts you can
          feel are safe.  When you create accounts in WGM, you are responsible for making sure they
          have the appropriate EVERYTHING.
This list is by no means complete, but these are the areas this noob is or was prepared to talk about.
Good night for now.  Enjoy climbing my wall of text, and yea sorry about that.  :O Run for you lives!!!!
  - Signed Shadowwraith