Server setup to support user profiles across multiple macs

Question

I want to do something that I thought would be obvious, but can't figure out how to do.
Here's the scenario: we have 10 or so macs in our office and 20 employees, many of whom are part time and need to share workstations. Currently, each user is assigned an iMac and he or she works there. What I would like is that a user is set up on our Mac mini server and he or she would have the same environment on any Mac.
I think the sets would be:
-setup the users on the server
-set up each of the macs to get login credentials from the server rather than locally
-sync or remotely mount the users home directory to the server when the user logs in.
Seems like it should be pretty simple, but I haven't figured out the easy setup guide for this. This is the basics. Next would be central app management, (ms office, and other tools licensed and installed centrally)
Thanks for any pointers.

Answer 1

You are looking for network home folders.  But before going any further, I will caution:
• Apple has been moving away from this for years
• You need robust storage and a solid network
• Understand your throughput and storage requirements
• Using the Adobe Suite over network home folders is not advisable
• Doing anything with video over network homes is not advisable
• Accept the reality that if anything goes wrong, your whole office does not work
Ok, that being said, the basic steps are:
1:  Make sure you understand and have internal DNS setup properly
2:  Create an Open Directory Master (this is required to make network home share)
3:  Defined a shared folder on faster storage.  When defining the shared folder, check the box to make it available for network home folders.  Choose AFP as the protocol.
4:  Create your users in the Local Network User container and when defining the account, set the home folder to the network home folder path.  This will automatically create the user's home folder on the server.
5:  Bind your workstations to the server
6:  Login using the user's network credentials
It sounds simple and it generally is.  But, I stress that you test this on a limited scale.  Once again, you need to have a solid 1000Base network.  Ideally, you would have your server link aggregated to 2gig or connected over 10GigE.  It is a simple math problem.  1000 Base on the server divided by 10 Macs means you have an average of 100Base per device.  That is pretty slow.  Also, this is a good time to add servers so you have a server dedicated to nothing but service NetHomes.
And finally, NetHomes is really a solution for schools where resource sharing is a requirement.  A student in school uses a machine for about 45 minutes.  If there is a problem, teachers are often flexible enough to change direction for 45 minutes.  In business, your users are going to be expecting the system to be up for at least 8 hours per day, every day.  And when it is not, what options do they have to stay busy?
R-
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Professional Services
Author "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively available in Apple's iBooks Store