Setting up Maverick Server: hiccoughs along the way

Question

Hi I'm trying to set up Mavericks Home Server. I'm a server novice. It is a rather time consuming and frustrating process. It is by no means something an average domestic computer user should consider, despite the apple blurb that makes it sound easy. OK enough rant (I'm clearly frustrated and have put in many unproductive hours with this)
I have bought a new mac mini, and followed Terry Walsh's guide (it was partly its availablitly that convinced me to take the plunge). I have set up a domain name, SSL certificate, and 6 network users. I have two problems. I don't know if they are related.
On a client I can log into one of the network user accounts, but then when i log out and try to log into another user, I get an error message saying the user account home folder "isn't in the usual place' - it lets me log into the account but with lots of ?? down in the dock.
I also noticed in the alerts section on the server that there was a reverse DNS problem (host name doesn't match computer name or something..? this might affect users ...). I have a dynamic IP address and an update client from dyndns which seems to work.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks so much

Answer 1

Then you've misunderstood me and extended the point about using DynDNS as a service to resolve a registered DNS name to a dynamic IP and confused it with the discussion about setting up properly an internal DNS server and DNS namespace.
"with the use of dynamic DNS as the server's own DNS and the lack of proper local reverse translations" - excuse me but where did I make such a statement? Sorry, but it seems to me you have a bit of a fixation on 'dynamic DNS'. Did you read the multiple posts where I was getting to check that his forward and reverse lookups on his local DNS were working? Where was I talking about using "dynamic DNS" for reverse lookups??
I'm going to have to disagree with your statement "but this dynamic DNS configuration does not work properly for OS X Server local DNS services." because you are being misleading and again making the assumption of mixing external with internal DNS.  And again I did not make such a statement - you interpreted it as such because again, it seems to me, you have a thing about DynDNS (from your website).
You and I both know about the need for the OS X DNS server to be correct & authoritative for the domain in the network space it's sitting in - which is usually private. That domain could either be something bogus like - "mydomain.some_tld_we_hope_is_never_taken_for_the_internet" or an Internet legal domain like "example.org". If one uses an Internet legal domain like 'example.org' then as long as the OS X DNS server stays authoritative for DNS for that only inside the LAN (which it has to) there is no issue. There is no issue using the OS X DNS server in a split-horizon setup.
In the situation where one has a registered domain name (me) I use DynDNS to provide public Internet name resolution for that registered domain name. Perfectly OK and functional way to work. You need to be more clear about the distinction between public, Internet, name resolution and internal (LAN) name resolution.
"You don't have a registered domain name.   You've (technically) acquired permission to use a subdomain (usually as a host name) from the organization that registered whichever dyndns domain you're using."  What do you base that on? The OP has never shared his domain name so how do you know what he's got??
"If you're using dynamic DNS, you're probably also on a dynamic IP address". Sorry but I'm going to have to say that you are confusing things even further. You jump from 'dynamic DNS' (which really you need to clarify what you mean by that phrase) to dynamic IP when we are talking about DNS inside his - static - LAN address range. If you are meaning "if you're using the DynDNS service to dynamically update DNS records for your Internet domain when your site's dynamic IP address changes" well obviously that is self-evident. However in the previous paragraph you stated the OP "don't have a registered domain name". You can't have it both ways.
The OP - for his home network - is not trying to have a "dynamic DNS" for his internal network but a 'static' authoritative DNS.
Also you seem (??) to be making the assumption that the OP is going to go out and buy a fixed IP from his ISP - I doubt it.
"I'm also going to disagree with FromOZ on the use of forwarders — those add an extra hop, and — unless you're using DNS-level logging or a DNS-based network nanny filter — don't really contribute much to the whole configuration when you're running a real DNS server.  With OS X Server, you really want to run DNS on your local network, too." Again you mix two concepts and confuse things.
No forwarders - well then you better tell Apple to remove the option for Forwarders from DNS settings in OS X server. They mustn't know what they are talking about.
"those add an extra hop" - please... as if the OP is going to going to notice that. Anyway the ISP is likely going to have 99.99% of the queries the OP's network wants cached on their DNS servers already, so actually it will be less hops because the OP's DNS server is not going to have to do recursion queries of the whole DNS chain to resolve addresses.
"With OS X Server, you really want to run DNS on your local network, too" ?? nowhere in the whole discussion thread have I made the statement "you must not run an (authoritative) DNS server on your local network" in fact the opposite was the case, I was helping the guy to make sure his local DNS was properly setup to serve local (authoritative).
Sorry, but I really have to say that you really added confusion to the discussion in your last post.
I think the OP is best served by purchasing a solid reference book - which is why I have been regularly pointing him to the volume which is specifically about OS X Mavericks Server.