Mobile accounts and parallels

Not sure if this is correct forum for this, apologies if it isn't.
I have some of my users set up as mobile accounts.
These same users are using parallels for WinXP sessions.
The issue I have is that when I download an attachment or file under MacOSX, I save it to my "Home" directory, because I am using a moblie account that is saved on the local hard drive.
In my parallels Window my networked "Home" directory is exactly that, on the server.
Therefore I do not get to see the saved file from earlier until a sync has occurred or a manual sync has been performed.
Is there a way (and I have asked parallels, they haven't replied) of making the Parallels windows to reference the home directory on the local hard drive, so that I do not have to wait for the sync to occur.

"Not sure if this is correct forum for this, apologies if it isn't."
Try the Parallels forums:
http://forums.parallels.com

Similar Messages

What is 'mobile account' and how does it work?

This is a hidden feature in Mac OS Leopard, that I believe require an Leopard Server on the network.
I have not found it in the regular user interface, but it can be revealed by following the below process:
1. Go to System Preferences > Accounts
2. Unlock
3. Search for mobile account, and press Enter
4. Wait for the Mobile account options to show up
What is this feature? How does it work?
I have found no references to it in the normal documentation.

Google is your friend:
"A mobile account is a Mac OS X Server user account that has been copied to a local computer and remains synchronized with the server account so that both locations contain a matching set of data."(Mac OS X Server User Management, p. 46).
And it has been around since 10.3, so it is not something new to Leopard.
see: http://www.afp548.com/articles/Panther/mcx2.html

Mixing mobile account and network account.

Is it possible to have mobile account on some computers and network account on others and having the same user logging in (only one login at a time) without sync issues ?
I have tested it with account preferences set on computers and it is working nice until I have been logged in on a computer with networked account, then I experience sync issues. Every time I log in mobile account I got a dialog window asking me to select "Sync Later" , "Mobile" or "Networked". It does not matter what I select, the dialog comes back everytime I log off and on with the mobile account. I have only managed get rid of it by deleting mobile account and sync it again.
Message was edited by: kenguru

Again, thanks for taking your time explaining this for me.
After been reading the User Management documentation from apple about Managing Portable Computers (Chapter 8), I got the opposite impression about running Mobile Account on multiple computers. From this text, as I read it, it is a common thing to do, as long as we are aware of sync issues that might occur and know how we shall deal with it.
So I'm a little confused about this topics, as it seem to make sense what you are saying, but the documentation says something different.
I have tried setting sync preferences on the user instead, so that every login is made with a mobile account on every computer. That seems to work ok. Off course sync issues may arise, but here the the file sync can be fixed through the dialogs windows that pops up. Unlike under the mix of network logins and mobile account logins where it doesn't matter which location I set to be the place containing the most recent files. This only occurs after a network account login. If I have been logged on another computer set up with mobile account everything syncs nicely. I think
So for now, I think I will stick with setting up users with mobile account preferences and skip the networked account.
Does this make any sense or am I still mistaking here?
Ok, thanks for all you help.
Bernt

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

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?

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

Mobile Account and Active Directory home folder

We install a XServe server (Mac OS X 10.6.3). We join it to Active Directory for authentification and Open Directory for policy. I read the magic triangle on the web.
I mount a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6. I join it to AD and after to OD. When I configure an account to be mobile, the home folder configure in AD stop to mount automatically. If the account is not mobile the home folder mount correctly.
Somebody has an idea of waht happen?

Hello, sifeduc, and welcome to the AppleBoards,
This really seems like a Directory Services question and is probably best suited to this board: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1353
That being said are you talking about Portable Home Directories? If so PHDs should be created on the server first and on the client second. If you have a client account you want to sync to the OD you need to delete the client account - *but leave it in place* - create a server account and then use the local account which will then sync to the server. The steps for this are a little more complicated than that but not much.
Good Luck,
=Tod

AD mobile account and Netinfo stuff up

Hi everyone, Not sure if this is the right place for this but I have made a stuffup and I'm not sure how to fix it.
I have my iBook in ad AD domain, and evrything was working flawlessly that is until I noticed strange errors in console indicating my UID was too large and stating this is not causing your problem Funny thingis I never knew I had a problem. What's the old adage about not fixing it if it's not broke?? Anyway being fearful of stuffing things up I have let it lie for a couple of months this way. After looking around on our Win Servers I couldn't find where or what the UID was mapping to, so decide to take the plunge and edit my account in Netinfo. So I made two duplicates of my account and chage my UID from a six digit figure to a 3 digit figure. Now when I login, I get the default desktop and Dock settings, even though my Home folder is mapped correctly. Help?

Yes, I know how to click buttons in the gui, that does not fix the issue. The issue is that the Active Directory schema at my company includes extended attributes from the RFC 2307 schema. Apple's AD plugin does not know how to handle this extended schema especially when using mobile accounts.
Apple's AD plugin reads these unix attributes from AD and thinks it knows what to do but ends up causing more problems then if there were no unix attributes at all.
Since this post, I have opened a ticket with Apple. They were able to recreate the problem in their lab with their AD server. The only work around is to create a custom ActiveDirectory.plist file that forces the Mac to ignore what AD is telling it.
This solution works unless the ActiveDirectory.plist file is deleted or corrupted. This problem will only become worse once Microsoft includes all of the RFC 2307 schema in their next service pack of Win 2003 server.

Again: Mobile accounts and folder date

Hi,
for a while syncing between MacBooks and Lion server worked.
But now I have issues again without changing a running system
1. On my MacBooks everyday, i.e after restarting, Spotlight indexes my files
2. Actually my MacBook Pro syncs my whole folder structure and modifies the date of the folder to the actual date! What a mess!
Anyone with the same behaviour?
Any solutions or simply a bug in Lion server?
I use 10.7.3 with Filesyncagent activated.
Ishan

See also http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3346
Symptoms
Active Directory users may receive the message "You are unable to log in to the user account (username) at this time" when trying to log in. This can happen with successive Active Directory users who have home directories on different sharepoints of the same server. They can log in if the Mac OS X client is restarted.
Resolution
Edit the /etc/auto_master file of the affected Mac OS X client. Comment out the /Network/Servers entry as shown in the example below:
# Automounter master map
+auto_master # Use directory service
/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
#/Network/Servers -fstab
/- -static
Save the file, then restart.

HT1688 Deleted my mobile account and all my contacts are gone. What do I do?

I deleted my Mobile Me account today. It was only the mail account that I delted. I lost all of my contacts. What do I do?

The iphone is designed to be synced to your computer regularly. Your contacts will be in whatever program you have chosen to sync. Just sync them back

Mobile Accounts and ACL's

Do you guys use ACL's on the sharepoint that is used for the home folders? If so how do you have them set up??

I have ACLs enabled on the volume where the homes reside, but no ACL's are set for the homedirs.
WorkGroup Manager should do the right thing. IMHO, you could get in a bit of a mess if you mess with the permissions in the homedirs.
hth,
b.

Mobile account doesn't complete initial creation and sync process

I'm trying to setup a mobile account for a network account but it won't complete the sync process on the client MacBook Pro. Both the server and the MacBook Pro are running 10.5.5.
When I login to client it prompts me to create a Mobile account and proceeds with the sync to create the account, but when the sync is complete it just logs in with the default account setup. None of the user files or settings (desktop image, preferences, etc) appear. The sync process says "Checking..." for all the files that supposedly get copied to the client, but it looks like it doesn't complete.
Is there a way of knowing what the problem is? Is there an issue with the user's home directory, some file that prevents the sync and mobile home creation from completing?
Thanks.

I solved this myself. The user ended up have a folder on his desktop that contained a backup home folder from an old powerbook that he was trying to save. It was a complete home folder, Documents, Library, etc and I thought it might be interfering with the sync of the normal home folder. So I created a folder called Bad Stuff in the home folder and copied the old powerbook home folder into it. Then opened up the Sync Settings and excluded the Bad Stuff folder from the sync. And it worked, the sync when fine and is resyncing fine.
Hope that helps with other people with a similar problem.

Mobile Accounts - Sync of iCal and Desktop Background Fails

I just set up mobile accounts and mobile home syncing on my computers so network users have a local home rather than just their network home. However it is interesting to me that the desktop picture is independent of the network home. That is to say, each machine has its own desktop picture for any one account.
However iCal does the same thing and thats a problem for me. For example, if I set up iCal to sync with my gmail on on computer, the other computers will not do it. I'm trying to avoid going into every computer and setting up the calendar preferences because that would be a pain in the tail.
Any clues?

Ditto. I am having the same problem. I don't understand why ~/Library/Application Support/ doesn't sync. There are two entries in the exclusion list, but none of them would prevent Mail, iCal, AddressBook, or iChat from syncing their configuration (.plist) files.
The only reason I bought this Mini Server was to manage these portable home directories (or Mobile Accounts) so that my family could login on any Mac and have their account all setup with everything configured and files available as if they were on their primary Mac.
Really a bummer!

Decommissioned a file server, but every mobile account in the place is still trying to connect to it on login!

A couple of months ago we decommissioned the 10.4.11 xserve that was serving as our LDAP server and home directory server for mobile accounts. We migrated all of that to a newer 10.6.8 xserve. It was a fairly rough migration, but we've pretty much sorted it out except for one last annoyance: when you look at System Preferences->Accounts->Login Items for all of our mobile accounts, every single client is still trying to mount an afp share on the old server. Logging in takes FOREVER because the connection needs to time out, so now my users are no longer logging out/in as often as they should, and so their Home Sync's are getting old.
When you go to the client's Preferences, the line referencing the old server share is still there, but the minus sign is greyed out so the item cannot be deleted.
The Kind is listed as "unknown" and there is a grey warning triangle next to it.
This is clearly some sort of template/Preference that is hardcoded to the old name, and whatever file this is got moved to the new server (which has a different name and different numeric IP address.) Because even the BRAND NEW users that I have created since after "pdc04.hgbc.com" disappeared are trying to log in to the non-existent share on the non-existent server, too!
I have tried running grep on the entire disk on one of the clients looking for the string "pdc04", and updated everything that I found using vi directly on the files. I have tried running grep on select directory trees on the new file server looking for pdc04. In my grep on the client, I found the string in
/Library/Managed Preferences/user/loginwindow.plist
/Library/Managed Preferences/user/complete.plist
but searching all of the logingwindow.plist and complete.plist files on the new server comes up with nothing.
Does anyone have any idea where the template or preference or plist is on the server so that I can delete or update the file with the new host name?

I think that Grant is on the right track -- but the problem is that whatever file that pdc04's Server Manager wrote into is not available to pdc's Server Manager to edit or even display.
We upgraded mostly by turning off the G5 10.4 xserve and unplugging the fiber-channel RAID (with user accounts on it) and plugging the RAID into a fiber-channel card on the new (to us) Nehalem 10.6 xserve, which we did after using Migration Assistant between the machines. Then we had various and sundry problems, and we ended up moving all of the mobile account directories to the internal RAID on the new server.
Clearly there is a file somewhere that acts as a template for mobile accounts and it refers to the old machine but its been moved to the new machine.
Only two of the mobile accounts have directories in the /Library/Managed Preferences folder. One of them, ironically, is mine, and my account hasn't worked right since we went to the new server.

Mobile account won't complete setup, initial sync won't complete.

I'm trying to setup a mobile account but it won't complete the sync process on the client MacBook Pro. Both the server and the MacBook Pro are running 10.5.5.
When I login to client it prompts me to create a Mobile account and proceeds with the sync to create the account, but when the sync is complete it just logs in with the default account setup. None of the user files or settings (desktop image, preferences, etc) appear. The sync process says "Checking..." for all the files that supposedly get copied to the client, but it looks like it doesn't complete.
Is there a way of knowing what the problem is? Is there an issue with the user's home directory, some file that prevents the sync and mobile home creation from completing?
Thanks.

Forgot about getting this problem solved.
The user account that had this trouble had a copy of his home directory from a laptop in his home directory. This backup had it's own Library folder which was confusing the Mobile account sync process.
When I removed the backup home directory, the initial sync went fine.

AD mobile account with local home directory

I basically have the same question as this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=696367
I have set up Tiger workstations to authenticate to AD, I am forcing a local home dir. Everything works great. I want to do the same thing for Tiger laptop users with mobile accounts. The problem is that OS X creates a second home directory outside of /Users based on attributes from my AD schema. Just like with the non-mobile users, I want to ignore all home dir attributes from AD and just use the user's home dir that is in /Users. So the question is, how can you use a mobile account and force a local home dir with Apple's AD plugin??????

Yes, I know how to click buttons in the gui, that does not fix the issue. The issue is that the Active Directory schema at my company includes extended attributes from the RFC 2307 schema. Apple's AD plugin does not know how to handle this extended schema especially when using mobile accounts.
Apple's AD plugin reads these unix attributes from AD and thinks it knows what to do but ends up causing more problems then if there were no unix attributes at all.
Since this post, I have opened a ticket with Apple. They were able to recreate the problem in their lab with their AD server. The only work around is to create a custom ActiveDirectory.plist file that forces the Mac to ignore what AD is telling it.
This solution works unless the ActiveDirectory.plist file is deleted or corrupted. This problem will only become worse once Microsoft includes all of the RFC 2307 schema in their next service pack of Win 2003 server.

Mobile-accounts FULL PATH badboy

Our goal is to get Mobile Accounts with Portable Home Directories working. The home folders are stored on an external hard drive on Mac OS X Server 10.6.3. It's more or less working... but not quite ARGHH! HELP!!
The short question is: What value do I use for the 'full path'
The obvious answer, causes problems.
THE GORY DETAILS (+aka. 'argh!!'+):
Since all the files for user1 are stored on macsrv1 in /Volumes/team1/users/user1 I believe that in WGM I should have:
Share Point URL: afp://macsrv1.disney.ch/users
path to home: user1
full path: /Volumes/team1/users/user1
but when I try to log onto user1 on mac1, for the first time, it fails.
In /var/log/secure.log I read +"user1 not known"+.
And +"Could not get the user record for 'user1' from Directory Services"+
(see *error1 at the bottom of this msg)
IF I CHANGE the full path to:
full path: /Network/Servers/macsrv1.disney.ch/users/user1
THE LOGIN WORKS (I'm asked if I want to create a mobile account and when I say yes, a local folder is created on mac1, and any syncing does indeed cause files to appear on macsrv1 in /Volumes/team1/users/user1
HOWEVER (+aka. Oh no!+):
When the user does an ssh into macsrv1, his home directory (cd ~ or echo $HOME) is /Network/servers/macsrv1.disney.ch/users/user1 which is really just /users/users1 which is a virgin/template-like folder.. certainy not /Volumes/team1/users/user1
BUT (goodnews here)
If I now set the full path back...
full path: /Volumes/team1/users/user1
Everything works. Loggging into mac1 ok. SSHing into macsrv1 ok.
But logging into mac2 fails (until I switch out the full path again)
*a. WHAT SHOULD BE THE CORRECT VALUE FOR FULL PATH?*
b. If it should be /Volumes/team1/users/user1 then how can I convince the client macs to create the mobile account?
2. I have a 2nd question concerning the automount re-mounting the drive... causing a double mount! I've described the problem here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2461695&stqc=true
I've hunted through the forums, where appartently the answer lies, without success. Please help!
/shawn
THANKS FOR ANY INSIGHT/help.
Helpers get free beer if they come to Switzerland.
p.s. I might add that the afp Share point on macsrv1 for /Volumes/team1/users is called 'users' (configured via WGM). Does that help? Maybe there is some weird conflict between there existing a /Users in root, and there being a mount called 'users'?
*error1:
After the login window, the user is informed that "Zou are unable to log into the user account. An error has occurred". In system.log on mac1 I read +"edu.mit.Kerberos.CCacheServer[927]: launchctl start error: No such process"+
+edu.mit.Kerberos.CCacheServer[927]: launchctl start error: No such process+
Message was edited by: DrKdev

Other observations:
*1. from /Library/Logs/DirectoryService/DirectoryService.error.log*
2010-06-18 14:04:11 CEST - T[0xB0185000] - Misconfiguration detected in hash 'Global UID':
2010-06-18 14:04:11 CEST - T[0xB0185000] - User 'user1' (/LDAPv3/macsrv1.disney.ch) - ID 1035 - UUID 80699B6C-A90E-4D2F-9B07-FB78F72E9709 - SID S-1-5-21-4063190502-2217233148-2094676766-3070
*2. user IS showing up in the login window.*
If I configure the login window to show all users (including network users), then user1 does indeed show up.
*3. Logging into user1 via ssh works.*
*4. dscl on macsrv1*
dscl /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1 -list /Users
does indeed show user1 (and any other user I create)
So why can't I login/create user1 on the client mac without toggling the FULL PATH to /Network/Servers/macsrv1.disney.ch/users/user1 first? arghh!

Mobile accounts and parallels

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for