Unbinding computers in 10.6...

Question

This is probably nothing more than an annoyance, but is there a way to manually unbind client computers in 10.6? In 10.5 you could "Force Unbind", but there isn't really that option in 10.6.
I'm completely rebuilding my server (had some hold-over issues from 10.5 that ballooned into unusable in 10.6) and want to get rid of all the "client not in database" errors in my LDAP and Kerberos logs to more easily troubleshoot potential real issues.
When I go into the account settings on the client system, my server name is listed with a red dot. I choose to remove it, and then it list my server name with a green dot... If I try to remove it again, I get an error of "Unable to resolve host."
On a related note (and possibly even more to the point), is there a way I can send out an unbind command (or series of commands) via ARD to mass-unbind all of my clients easily?

Answer 1

Hi
One of the ways you can do this using ARD is to select all the workstations you're interested in and send this command from Terminal:
rm -Rv /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService
Run the command as root (sudo). It's also a good idea to get rid of any lingering MCX:
rm -Rv /Library/Managed\ Preferences
Again run the command as root. Finally restart all the workstations. Again you can easily do this from ARD's Manage Menu. Another command you could use is "dsconfigldap -remove". Consult the manual page "man dsconfigldap" for usage. My personal preference is the first option I've given.
On a side note you could consider utilizing the NetBoot Service and 'pushing' out a vanilla client image. Depending on what you want and as a rough guide a 20GB image for 30 Clients on a Gigabit Network should not take more than 90 minutes or so.
Tony