Network users w/ local home folders

Hi,
I have a basic question that I can't find a clear answer to. How do I create a network user account (through open directory) and specify a home folder to be created on the local machine (users are nearly all at stationary workstations)?
The documentation all says that it is possible but not exactly how. Maybe I'm missing something obvious?
Thanks,
Sb

Hi
Clients should be bound to Open Directory and be using the OD Master for their DNS. Launch WorkGroup Manager and authenticate to the LDAP node. If you have only a few Users you can do it at that Level if hundreds do it at Group Level. Select Preferences > Mobility. It's fairly obvious thereafter.
After the home folder has been created you can make that account a local administrator if you wish.
This assumes the Server has been configured as Advanced. Please don't take this advice if you've used anything else.
Tony

Similar Messages

Network accounts with local home folders

First of all sorry for my bad english.
I want to obtain network accounts with local home folders.
I have found this post very interesting to solve my problem.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2140595#2140595
Following this indications I have obtained it but I dont see the Public folder of any home folder from the network.
How I can solve this? I must share the Public folders manually? How? I have proven with SharePoints 3.5.4 and I have not obtained it.
Thanks
iMac Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi
Clients should be bound to Open Directory and be using the OD Master for their DNS. Launch WorkGroup Manager and authenticate to the LDAP node. If you have only a few Users you can do it at that Level if hundreds do it at Group Level. Select Preferences > Mobility. It's fairly obvious thereafter.
After the home folder has been created you can make that account a local administrator if you wish.
This assumes the Server has been configured as Advanced. Please don't take this advice if you've used anything else.
Tony

How to set up Open Directory Users with local home folders?

Hi folks,
i set up a Mac mini Server with the services DNS, DHCP, AFP and OpenDirectory running. Everything is working fine so far but i want my OpenDirectory Users to have their home folders locally on the clients harddisk. My Leopard clients are already bound to the directory but everytime i try to login the login window is shaking even when i use the Directory Administrator account. What am i doing wrong?
Thanks.

(Did you read my other reply? You need to make it a portable account for the caching of login credentials.)
With network homes and portable account enabled on a machine you always run from the locally stored homefolder on that machine.
This homefolder syncs with the server network home folder for that account.
If either of these folders get corrupt or unintentionally altered files (permission problems) somehow, there is risk of losing files, syncing problems and more (can take long time to sync at login/out, during even without corruption - I prefer gigabit cable to WiFi for this for obvious reasons).
You at least need to monitor storage space in both places. You don't want either to fill up the disk (worse on server because several users can have their folders corrupted at the same time). Working quota settings / account is probably a good thing.
And you probably need to decide what is synced : all folders or just some (and when / how often).
You either do this form the server (you decide) or let the user have some say or a mix of these two.
You might want to leave out the user's personal files (music, movies and such) and also depending on emaIl client used, maybe not sync email if the client saves it like Entourage does it, in big ever changing database files. Might be better to just backup the mailserver if IMAP based.
If a user puts other large files in their homefolder (often on the Desktop) they can fill up the server fast. DVD-projects anyone?
Mixing different versions server/client might not work too good either.
So having said that, when syncing works it can be really good and you can restore a machine/account fast with pretty recent data. You can if in a hurry even log in from another machine using the account network home folder, getting access to the synced folders/files.
Using Time Machine it's a one way "sync" (more like "duplicate changed and new files" - which I like) and you have to manually set TM settings on the client for what is going to be backed up and when. I do atleast don't know how to do it from/on the server. This "less intervention by the server" can be a good thing but if your users don't "behave" you might want to be in the drivers seat "saving them from themselves".
TM backups can grow fast and probably demands more user interaction when storage space is used up.
As with all "backup" configurations you probably want some rotating media backup of both network homes and/or TM backups so you can do a restore. Of these two, network homes are the more important one to backup "further".

Change Network Home Folder to Local Home Folders

Hello and Thanks in advance for your help.
I created a mac network in our school this year. This is used for a video editing lab of 14 iMac's. I used a Mac Xserver with Server 10.5.7 on it and my clients are also 10.5.7. I upgraded my server hard drives to three 1TB hard drives in RAID 0 array. I created my users and decided to use true network homes so the students could use any mac in the lab at any given time. The Server has two Gigabit connections to it. This setup works great until you get more than 5 users at one time importing and editing videos. I believe the servers Hard Drives could not keep up with the data streams for multiple users and video editing.
What is the easiest way to switch the students network home folders to local home folders on the iMacs? I tried it with a dummy account that I've been using from the beginning but when I try to change the mobility preferences in WGM to create a mobile account at login and use default syncing I get 2 different error messages.
Either error while saving 14006 Or Error while saving 14084
Sometimes an error about DSutil.cp line 712 comes up as well.
Is it possible to have the students current Network Home folders sync to a local iMac and then switch them to use local home folders only? I'm trying to keep the students from losing the last few weeks of work.
Should I try to use the create mobile account on the actual iMac instead of in WGM on the server?
Thanks again,
Mitch

Thanks for the info Tony.
Just for other people who are looking for answers to this problem I'll give my specifics.
14 iMac workstations
1 XServe server upgraded w/ 3 1TB WD Caviar Black drives RAID 0
All networked using 1 Cisco Gigabit switch
1 GB to each iMac
(2) 1 GB connections to the Server
The original true network home folders worked out okay for Final Cut Pro users. About 6 could work at the same time, capturing and editing their work. For iMovie HD only about 3 could use it at the same time.
I could not get iMovie '09 v 8.0.5 to import to the network homes. Something about video library errors if I remember correctly. So I went back and they have been using iMovie HD with no problems.
There was a lot of dropped frames and time wasted on importing with time code brakes.
This is where I decided to create mobile accounts for each student on a specific computer set by the teacher. As stated about it will take about 3 minutes per GB of data to copy from the server to the local computer. Near the end of the student list (about 70) it would copy the data fairly quickly and then would sit at 100% for about 7+ minutes before It would finally complete and log off.
The login sync still only takes about 1 full minute and the logout usually takes 1 minute but can sometimes take up to 3 depending on how much capturing they have done.
After about 2 full weeks of use, this solution still seems very viable. There have been no complaints about dropped frames or lag while capturing. There is also no lag while using iMovie HD (which was very problematic before) during editing and playback. This is still great because at the end of the day they still have a mobile account and can access their data from any mac, besides the one they have a mobile account setup on. Also, if something happens to the server they can still login to the computer with their mobile account and still accomplish work and when the server is back up it will automatically sync on the next login.
I'm not sure if it was the network or hard drive speed causing the lag. My server will only hold 3 SATA drives and they had to be configured for 1.5 instead of 3.0. The RAID was also setup w/ apple software and was not a hardware card.

Local Network User with Local Only or Services Only Home Folder Setting

Hi all,
According to the OS X Server Advanced Administration Guide, under the "Choose a user’s home folder location" section, "If you choose Local Only, the user won’t have a home folder on the server and can’t log in using the account information stored on the server." However, when I create a Local Network User account with a "Local Only" home folder, Server.app creates a home folder in that user's name in the User's directory of the Server itself. According to the documentation that shouldn't happen, right?
The documentation gives no mention to the "None - Services Only" setting for the Home Folder. I will only be giving users access to DNS, File Sharing, NetInstall, Software Update and Profile Manager. I believe all I need are "Local Network User" accounts. However, the documentation confuses me on whether the Home Folder setting should be set to "Local Only" or "None - Services Only". Can someone clarify this for me?
Many Thanks!

The idea is that a local home folder will get created, but the home folder will not be available to the outside world via services (e.g. Portable Home Directory). I don't believe anything in the services you provided requires a home folder. So, you should be able to get by with "None - Services Only".

Giving an OD Network User/Group local admin rights.

Is there a way to manage workstation admin rights from the server?
I ran into a problem with Lightroom that requires admin privileges to change the program preferences. We have alot of graphic art students with roaming profiles, spread out across 5 labs, that need to make this change. I would like to be able to add a group or all network users to the local admin group, for a few days, so the students can make the changes.

This works on 10.5, not sure about 10.6.
As root on the client.
Upgrading legacy group for local admin group - this is from 10.4 days, not sure if you still need to do it.
dseditgroup -o edit -f n -t group -n /Local/Default admin
Nest OD group in local admin group
dseditgroup -o edit -a DirectoryAdminGroup -t group -n /Local/Default admin
Gen

How to migrate network users to new home directory

Want to migrate network user accounts from current directories on an internal drives on a Mac Pro to a newly connected XRAID box.
Before the XRAID was attached, network users were able to use their home directories to log into the system, but space was limited and we had them use Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices to store their data and media files.   The XRAID now provides 7TB or protected storage and we'd like to move their accounts to the arrays in the XRAID box.
Have not been able to find details on how best to handle this. Don't know if the current info needs to be exported, user ID's delete/recreated - or modified to point to new home directories, and then imported, etc.   I have most of the Apple 10.6 Server manuals, but have not run across info for this type of change/migration.
Thanks for any leads to this information, or how-to's.
Tom

Did some trials with some bogus users I set up on the original share device.
Did the unshare as mentioned. Created new share directory on the Xraid. Ran CP to copy users in the old share directory to the new. Shared the new Xraid directory and set auto-mount.
While the share directories were on two completely separate volumes and their paths were fine. Workgroup Manager shows the shares by servername/sharename.   So I now had sharename and sharename-1 showing up in WM. The old share directory had been Unshared, but as long as any users in WM point to the old directory - it shows up on the list.
Seeing this, I deleted the newly copied users and deleted the Xraid share directory. Then created newsharename on the Xraid, ran the CP to this new name. Used WM to change the Home directory for each user. User logon failed because the path names had changed. Deleted the new users and the new Xraid directory and retried first method with same sharename and resulting sharename-1 in WM.
Updated the user's home directories to sharename-1 in WM. Once all were changed, the old sharename dropped out of the WM list, but I was left with the sharename-1. User Logon was spotty - some were OK, others had issues, some earlier OK logons failed later. Was not rock solid.
Before I move any real user accounts and all their data, need to be certain there will be no issues. This naming issue of the share appears to be the bug in the process. Ideas to overcome this naming issue?
What I didn't try (thought of later, after testing) was to unshare the sharename-1 and go back and select the sharename again. Thinking is the "-1" due to the duplicate should not be an issue. But now the Home Directory info will have the "-1" - this caused Logon issues. Possibly WM will show these as sharename-1 as old Home location and allow me to select plain sharename and all be settled.
No where near the clean process I thought Apple Server would provide for moving user Home and Data.
Open to any and all ideas. Thx!
Tom

Network User with Local Admin Privileges?

I have a small network (around 25 clients total) that was setup prior to my arrival. Each client has its own unique local admin (each machine was setup by the individual user) and it's become somewhat daunting to support them.
All of the machines are connected (but not specifically bound) to an Open Directory and each is accessible via Remote Desktop, however I cannot push software updates, etc. without local admin privileges.
I'd rather not create an account on each machine, nor do I want to completely lock down each computer (I'd like them to still have the flexibility to be admins so they can install apps, etc.)
Is it possible to authenticate against OD and obtain local admin privileges?

Yes.
You can wipe all account information and then recreate a common initial admin account. This will make administration far easier as all machines will have the same admin username/password combination. Next, bind all of the systems to the domain and create domain accounts for all users on the server (likely already exist). Log in as the domain accounts and migrate permissions to domain ids. Finally, promote the user to the local admin group through System Preferences > Accounts on the workstation. You must enable the account as a mobile account in Workgroup Manager first. If you do not, the account will not cache to the workstation and you will be unable to add it to the admin group.
Also, in a workgroup of 25, I would recommend rethinking the decision to grant local admin access to end users. This is asking for trouble as you will have no control over when updates are applied or even if they are. In theory (and probably in practice), you will have 25 completely different machines configurations. This is far harder to manage and troubleshoot than 25 systems with different admin accounts.
If you must provide some level of autonomy, while not trivial, you might want to consider modifying /etc/authorization and granting limited admin rights to the users.
Hope this helps - congrats on the opportunity

Correct permissions for user home folders?

I recently installed a new Mac Mini with Server 10.10.2
I have about 10 clients running off the server (an open directory master), they are setup as local network users and have home folders on the server.
I had to copy contents of the home folders from a previous (crashed) server and I can't seem to get the permissions right.
A couple of the users use home directory syncing, so they have a local copy of their home folder on the computer they usually use, but changes aren't getting synced across the network to the server. An example is the dock, I keep removing and replacing icons in the dock, but logging out and logging back in returns the dock to its old configuration (presumably bringing the old config back from the server).
Is there a tool which resets user directory permissions for network home folders? Or can someone give me any guidance how to sort this out?
Thanks
James

In the sidebar of the Server.app window, select the icon at the top with the name of the server. Then select the Storage tab in the main window pane.
Navigate to the folder in question and select it. From the popup menu at the bottom with a gear icon, select
Edit Permissions...
Verify that the permissions are what they should be, and make changes if necessary. Then, from the same menu, select
Propagate Permissions...
Check all applicable boxes, including Access Control List. If in doubt, check all boxes. Click OK.

Network Users with network homes not really working for me

I have with great pain setup a OS X Lion server on a Mac Mini that was supposed to be my central server to have 4 network users accounts and all the users data is stored on an external disk array with mounted network homes to the 2 iMacs and 2 Macbooks I have in my home.
I have gotten it all working and all my Macs are joined to the Open Directory and each User can login as a network users on any of the Macs and get their files via mounted home directory from the server. The home directories on the server are backed up with Time Machine.
I have found the following items that do not work proberly:
1) Desktop backgrounds settings are just lost sometimes for whatever reason. Desktop background goes to default and you need to manually set back to the one you have selected. This happen mostly if users have their own desktop pictures.
2) Keychain get's screwed up. The user often get the "Keychain doesn't exist to store ..." message and need to select to reset the keychain. Anything I have tried from "Keychain First Aid" to removing and have a new one created doesn't fix the problem. It keeps on coming back.
3) iTunes Storage and AppStore are getting confused about authorized computers. This is because a user logs in from another computer and then iTunes store would tell the user this computer hasn't been authorized to play the purchase music. Same happens with iPhone apps from the AppStore. Apparently those two stores are not setup to hanlde network users proberly.
4) Permission issues happen sometimes in Application like iPhoto where it would complain not being able to see photos or cannot add new photos to the library. Need to run a permission repair on the Iphoto Library to fix this.
5) One critical one is that it's not really possible to restore files from Time Machine. The Time Machine backup is done on the server by an administrator account directly backing up the user directories. When you go into Time Machine on the server even the admin can drill down into the user directories so no restore possible. The individual users have no idea that there was ever a Time Machine backup done as Time Machine is not setup in their accounts on the individual Macs. This prevents any possible restore.
I reckon that many of the problems are related to having only one location for ~/Library as the individual Macs are writing their user related settings into this directory in a central location. So what happens is when something on iMac 1 and then I log in on iMac 2 that might not exactly match this Macs config and it get's confused throwing one of the above erors.
Trouble is witth central network home directory the way they mounted i can't exclude the ~/Library folder. The only option I can see is mobile account because I have seen in the preferences that when they sync the handle Library items differently.
Does anybody have any experience out there with this sort of thing and can advise what's the best way forward?
If i can't resolve this I'll go back to have network users with local home directories on each Mac and just setup for each user a network share to which they copy files if they want them available on other Macs. Not as nice but at least it works!
As a said note I did this to make things easier but it has up to now cost me trouble then i had before!

Haven't heard anything from anybody so probably to daunting a topic ...
I have now moved on to try Portable Home Directories (PHD) and syncing ... what a disaster!
First it took me ages to get this right as the way the home directores are mounted on the clients from the server it's just weired which has to do with how AFP mounts are implemented. Since one AFP mount can't be mounted by several users on the same system they use a workaround of mounting it to a temp directory and then linking it back to where it should be. Of course this causes major problems.
Okay it kind of worked so let's move on to syncing PHD. First of all on initial creation it only sync a small portion of the directory that should be okay but on some of my accounts it never went passed this stage. It said it's all synced but it only had synced the first 10% or so of the data. I wasn't able to make it sync anymore.
On other accounts it correctly synced all the data down, or so I thought. Apparently a few sync session back and forth and 50-60% of the data was gone. On further investigation it turned out to be iTunes and iPhoto libraries. Turns out does don't sync probably via Home Sync!!!
Apple product is not able to probably syncing Apple specific library files!!!!
So here my warning to everybody: DO NOT USE PHD and HOME SYNC to sync your data as you will lose stuff if you have iTunes and/or iPhoto libraries with Lion OS X Server!!!
The whole Lion Server experience has been a disaster for me. Now I have a server that does file sharing and time machine backup sharing. I can do the same thing with a standard Mac using those services. What's the point of Lion Sever for Home if nothing works proberly?

Best way to migrate local users to the network - move home folders?

Hi everyone,
I am about to set up my Mac mini server (Snow Leopard Server). I have one iMac with three user account on it (local), another iMac that we just bought and my MacBook Pro with my admin account on it (Snow Leopard). So all have Snow Leopard.
What would be the best way to move the three local accounts AND their home folders to the server?
What would be the best way to make my portable user account into a mobile user account on the server?
I am planning to create all users on the server (with the same username and passwords etc.) then move the local home folders from the iMac to the server through some direct wired connection. My concern is with this move - will there be permissions mismatch issue? I am sure there will be as the UID would be different for the same accounts (pre-existing and newly created, eventhough their username and passwords are the same).
Any best practices? strategies?
Does Apple have any documentation on this specific topic? - that is moving local user accounts and their corresponding home folders onto the server?
Thanks much!
Kenneth

Hi again,
I haven't gotten round to it - but may have an alternative route in the mean time: the brand new 27" iMac just arrived, and rather than doing a full 'migration assistant' setup, I am going to try the following:
1. on the new iMac: only create a local Admin account, user name totally unrelated with any other account name;
2. on the server: settle all the network user account settings, portable home directories, managed preferences etc. for each user;
3. on another computer: log on under the corresponding local user account, and copy one's home folder entirely to an external drive - do not use this machine again under this user account;
4. on the new iMac: log in as a network user, make sure the home folder and library syncing works as desired, set some preferences (and check that this gets synced to the server drive); copy the parts of the home folder & library for this user from the external drive - wait until it all gets synced back and forth - and check any permissions, preferences whatever issue (the local account on the other computer is available for cross-checking, just don't change any documents or settings on that one)
5. if all works well on the new iMac: delete this local user account on the other computer.
6. repeat steps 3-5 for each other computer where this user has a local account (one 'old' iMac, one 13" MB) - will also allow to check and filter any duplicate documents which have accumulated over the different machines.
7. create the network accounts for this user on the other computers, and check the syncing etc.
8. repeat for each user (4 in total for us).
I think this might just work, since the new iMac at present has no accounts - so no possible issues with similar account names & passwords etc - and you keep the 'old' local account on the other machine as a safeguard anyway.
Any particular thoughts or comments on this proposed process??
How about permissions: does the copying to an external disk, and then back onto another computers disk solve that??

How to manage local user home folders?

We are using Mac OS X 10.6.8 in a classroom. Hard drive has two partitions, one for OS and apps, the other for student's files. Computers are bind to the Active Directory. Unfortunately, local home folders are on the boot parition. Over a time when apps FCP and Avid are frequently used, the boot partition gets filled with files and finally it's full. With zero kb available, users cannot even login anymore. Manually deleting files by admin is cumbersome and time-consuming task.
I'm looking for a way to keep /Users folder clean. Putting user's home folders to server is not an option, because of latency issues etc. Unfortunately the local home folder is the default saving place when user issues the Save As command. I've tried to tinker with the User Template to lock the Documents folder but apps like Microsoft Word and Final Cut Pro go crazy when they cannot save there.
Forwarding /Users to other partition does not solve the problem, it just moves the problem to another place.
Logout Hook to automatically purging the files could be an solution, but there's always one hapless soul who saves his or hers files to wrong place and loses them. Or maybe a script which looks at the modfication date and deletes old files.
Any ideas?

You need to set the scratch disks in FCP and Avid to fix the problem.
Files coming from word etc, will be so minor that it'll take forever to fill up the HD with that kind of stuff.
If you wanted to move the whole home folder to another place on the system, you need to do so using OS X server. It's called Augmenting Active Directory User Records.
If you don't have an OS X Server, you may be able to change the Users Home directory on each individual computer, but it's going to be pretty cumbersome. Do so in the Accounts pane in the System Preferences.
Once you've changed the User Home folder location, you need to copy the users home folder using rsync in the terminal.
Like this:
rsync -av /Users/*username* /Volumes/*drivename*/*homefolderlocation*/
HTH
-Graham

WGM creates new home folders with _unknown user/group, SA can't change it

A little background:
In our school we've got an xserve (about 1.5 yrs old), that was having issues last year. (the OD database pretty much ate itself). in august we did a clean install of 10.5, and updated to 10.5.3 (after suffering through the AFP/OD issues in 10.5.2). Because of the corrupt database from the last server, and the fact that a large number of our accounts have migrated through 4-5 iterations of servers from 9.2 on through 10.4.11, we created all new clean accounts by hand in WGM and moved the user files to the new home folders, changed user and permissions with SA to the new accounts and propogated that info to all the files for each home folder. everything has been going fine since then.
until this week.
the issue was discovered when we tried to create a new staff account (we created several accounts last week with no issue). in WGM everything looked fine. it created the account, assigned it to the proper group, and sucessfully created a home folder. the problem however was when we went into SA to change the permissions. we don't need everybody seeing everyone else's files, so we change the default group and everyone permissions to something more appropriate (don't even get me started on that gripe). When you navigate to the new home folder you just created in WGM, it shows the owner as _unknown (read/write) and group _unknown (read only... I think), Everyone (read only). Server Admin refuses to change the user or group. doesn't matter whether you use the 'show users/group' dialog and drag the account, or whether you edit it manually and insert the short name or UID. when you hit save, it stubbornly reverts back to unknown/unknown for user and group. we've tried creating accounts with different templates, no template, different account names and UID's, all with the same result.
The odd part is that nothing in the OS has changed since we first set it up and created all the users. nothing installed, nothing updated...
We've stayed at 10.5.3 due to the disaster in one of the updates (10.5.5 I think) that many of our other local districts had with network accounts not being able to see their own library folders due to permission issues, as well as the AFP causing 100% CPU use bug reported with 10.5.5
A second, probably related issue is that when browsing home folders in Server Admin filesharing, any files our network users create seem to end up assignedunknown/unknown for user and group (as far back as October it seems). After searching around the net most of the day I came across a lot of info about the _unknown user issues for folks upgrading from 10.4, but these are all newly created 10.5 network users (not local) logging in and working in home folders on the server. The original owners can read/write/delete these files as normal.
Any help would be most appreciated.

ok... I find we were shot in the foot by one of our own.
The quick answer: DO A GET INFO ON THE VOLUME WITH THE SHAREPOINTS! if the 'ignore permissions on this volume' box is checked... UNCHECK IT!
Explaination: not sure how the ignore permissions box got checked, but I don't think it was done directly by human hands. we use Carbon Copy Cloner Ver. 3.something (not sure which at this point) to back up both our data (daily) and server (weekly) drives to remote storage. by striking coincidence, things started saving with _unknown user and group about the same time as crash reporter shows that CCC hosed itself. My guess is that CCC temporarily ignores permissions (as shown in the status when you do a clone) and then resets them to their original state. when it crashed, it looks like they were still set to ignore, so it happily set it back to that state every time it ran after that. not sure why the account creation issue suddenly turned up after so long... In any event, it turns out that if you have sharepoints on a server volume, AND you set the OS to ignore permissions on that volume, BAD things happen (I'm not sure it should even be an option on a shared volume, but that's for the engineering folks to figure out.) .... specifically, the symptoms above. if you login as root (yeah, I know that's something you should never do) and uncheck the ignore permissions box on the volume, then log into WGM, as root (yeah, yeah, I know... even worse) and set ALL of the Directory Administrator accounts to 'do not administer this server', and no change rights for the directory, save those settings, and then set them back to 'administer this server', and FULL rights to change the open directory, save again. and then WAIT until the drives stop going nuts... after that everything works fine.

Migrating local users to network users

Hi - I have seen answers for past versions of the server, but none seem to work.
I have 5 macs, 4 users. I want them to be able to log in from any mac and have their home screen/files appear as if it was on their (former) local machine. Also want to set up group folders that can be accessed as well. The latter part is no problem setting up, but how can i migrate the local home folders to the network easily.
I have set up user accounts, bound local machines to the server, tried mobility settings but can't get it to work.
I read somewhere that if the shortname is the same on the local machine as the server that may cause problems.
Also - is there any advantage to setting up machines vs users in workgroup manager?
Thanks

Hello,
if you want your users to be able to login from any machine on the network, then your users must exist in the OD on the server and the client machines must be bound to to the server. Client machines must be set to use network accounts.
If the client machines are not portable (MB, MBP, Air etc), set you users as _plain_ network users, otherwise use Mobile accounts. The difference is that in case of mobile account are user credentials cached on the client, so they are able to login even when they are on another network (so the server is not available to authenticate).
Next you need to set up network home for network your users. Start up Server Admin, select a sharepoint and enable automount as User home folder.
Next, in the workgroup manager select your users, and assign them new home folder paths. As a last step copy contents of local homes to the new network location.

Local home directories vs network home directories?

We have an existing linux server which handles web, ftp, dhcp and email for our design group. I am planning the integration of a new mac os x server to handle shared work folders, client archives, shared resources (stock images etc) with eSATA raids as a fail over back up. I have been doing a lot of reading and research, but have not arrived at a best solution for local vs network homes. Our users never connect from another mac workstation, and so utilize a number of iLife content mgmt apps. They all have large personal photo libraries, music libraries etc on their workstations. In addition, many of our projects involve working on extremely large photoshop files, video files etc. I am leaning towards leaving these users as local homes as there is concern over performance on the network. Pros? Cons? am open to any input before establishing final plans for osx server services.
Network is cat 5e ethernet with 3 gigabit switches (one on each floor of a 3 storey building with an uplink between ea floor)
more macs than I can list Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Is the local home with synchronization of
selected folders a variant of mobile home? or mobile
user? (newbie osx server admin, still digesting the
apple manuals!!
Ok what I believe your asking is can you sync your portable home directory ~/shortname to the Server /HomeDir/shortname and ignore the lets say ~/shortname/Pictures or Music Directory? Since you only want Work related files on the Server and only have to backup 1 big user directory with only work related file on the server? Well the answers is a big YES .
What is required takes a bit to setup. Heres a quick list of things to do and that need to be in place for it to all work smooth.
1. OS X Server Software with OD/LDAP setup 10.4.3 or higher!
2. All Client 10.4.3 or higher and binded to the OD/LDAP Server.
3. Setup Workgroup Admin/Preferences Management. You can set rules for a Group or individual Users. Groups being the preferred way. In here you can set the Path to the Files & Folders to ignore during the Sync. You can do lots of other MCX Managed client settings here and if your OD/bind is good it works great.
4. You'd have to move stuff around on the Local units i.e. ~/oldfiles to New ~/shortname which will be created. There a few way to do this and hold Permissions and all that just read about Mobile homes more. Think of it as a Laptop connecting for the first time to a binded OD server. Lots of folks have different ways.
My clients also work with Large files (PS, ID, ai) and a network home was a bit of a pain. To be honest it's not the large files that get you it was the BS cache files that slow it all down. There are now work arounds for the performance hit but took time for the community to figure it all out. I had them in 10.3 working on files in the /Users/Shared/ directory and moving finished work back to the server after.
10.4 has been the saviour of my sanity with mobile homes. Servers Fast Clients Fast, I have full control of clients (<--admin god complex), and all lived happily ever after... for the most part.

Network users w/ local home folders

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