User home directory on server over WAN link

Hello all,
I have a performance question about home directories. The situation is:
- 3 locations, 3 servers (OS X server 10.4.7 (Xserves))
- WAN connections are 1 Mbit/s
- All clients running 10.4.7 (imac G5 1.6/1.8 GHz.)
- User home folders are all located on one of the three servers
Two locations are OD replicas from the first location.
User home folders are located on the server at the location where they work most.
Some users work 4 days at location A, and 1 day at location B or C.
For simplicity let's say I have a user called A, with home directory located on server at location A.
User A is now working one day at location B. User logs in successfully, but everything is very slow (1 Mbit WAN link).
I really like the flexibility of server based home folders. Also the fact that there is no data on the local machines is very much appreciated (physical security, backup etc.). I was thinking about portable home directories, but that won't solve my problem, given the fact that all data needs to be copied once from location A to B (especially when users use different machines on the other location). Data will be stored on the local machines as well in that situation (but can be synchronized).
It is of course possible to synchronize data from server A to B and C when a user logs off (rsync). Is there any way to tell OD that it should pick a user home directory based on the location where that specific user logs in? Disk space isn't really an issue.
The performance is really awful using a 1 Mbit connection and upgrading the connections is not really an option (well maybe I could get it to 2 Mbit, but that won't solve this problem).
Thanks for any advice.
Jordi
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

How about firewire harddrive or ipod-based home directories which the users could take to different offices with them?
If not... I really think that your best option is to work to get Portable Home Directories working. Remember it is only the data that has been changed that is synced each time. You mention you are concerned about backup, but this will be done from the server after user data is sync'd there. The physical security worries can be taken take of by using open firmware passwords.
Is there any way to tell OD that it should pick a user home directory based
on the location where that specific user logs in?
By using DHCP at each site to bind the clients you can force them to use the Home Diretory you specifiy at each site. But this sounds like a sync & backup nightmare to me and don't forget rsync will mangle your acl's and other meta data.
hth,
b.

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User Home Directory not being created when "Create Home Now" button hit...

This is a cross post, since I was not sure where this should end up since it touches two pieces- Open Directory and User Management. Any help would be appreciated!
I am running OS X Server 10.5. All of my user accounts have been migrated over along with their home directories. Problem is that when creating new users and then assiging a home directory the system does not actually create the directory.
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Problem with user home directory redirection on OS X

It appears that the Authorware 7.01 runtime gets confused
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user's directory to the network.
I suspect it is a problem with the path to the Application
Support folder where Authorware stores its .rec files.
That happens is that JumpFileReturn returns to the start of
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I'm not sure of the process on macs that match the use of the
ini file, but
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file since
you'll never return to that first location.
HTH
====================
Mike Baker
Adobe Community Expert
[email protected]
"peterevensen" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> On Mac OS X, you can set a workstation up to have the
user's directory
> (including the preferences folder, etc.) on a file
server. If one sets up
a
> Mac workstation to do this, Authorware quits working
properly when you
jump
> between pieces.
>
> The piece is set up correctly. I don't touch the User
Record location.
The
> pieces are set to resume and work fine if the user's
directory is not
> redirected.
>
> When Authorware jumps to another piece/file, it dumps
out a *.rec file
> containing the current state. These are stored on the
Mac in <user
> directory>/Library/Application
Support/Macromedia/AW7Data folder. When
the
> user directory is redirect to the network and the user
exits the file that
was
> jumped to, the original piece starts over from the
beginning. This is
the
> same behavior you see if Authorware cannot write out the
*.rec file (e.g.,
if
> you write protected the above folder, or the equivalent
folder on Windows,
> hence the change in AW 6.5
>
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_16607&sliceId=1
>
> This problem has been reported in the field several
times. I haven't set
up a
> server yet to reproduce it, but my assumption is that
Authorware is not
getting
> the path or not handling the path to the user's
Application Support
properly
> when it is redirected to a network server.
>
> On Windows, there is an .ini file which can be used to
change where
Authorware
> stores temporary file (.rec). I don't believe there is
an equivalent for
the
> Mac runtime, is there? I see that I could change that
path using the path
> parameters in JumpFileReturn, but does that change where
the current piece
your
> jumping from writes out the .rec file? It would be
preferable if I could
> change it globally once, rather than going into the 100s
of pieces I am
> maintaining.
>
> I'm not sure an aw7.ini would fix the problem in any
case, since I am not
sure
> where one could safely map the user record location,
since this is a
multi-user
> environment. You couldn't map everyone to the same
location.
>
> Your reply, while not answering my question directly,
has pointed me to
some
> more things to look at (like the path parameter on
JumpFileReturn),
although
> I'm not sure why Authorware isn't working without
changing that. If you
have
> any additional suggestion, I would greatly appreciate
it!
>
>
quote:
Originally posted by:
Newsgroup User
> I'm not sure what you're asking. Can you provide more
detail? Are you
> using JumpFileReturn to launch another file, which also
sets a different
> UserRecord location? And that doesn't work...how?
> Do you have 'resume' set in the File Preferences instead
of 'restart'?
> Erik
>
>
>
>

How can I move the user home folder from server to the mac

I have a mac mini which i use for OpenDirectory, DNS and email. It is not a big installation it is for my wife and I.
My wife logs in using an network account, and the user folder is saved on the mac mini. This gives me a few problems.
a. If the server is upated and restarted, my wife has to relogin, or sometimes reboot the imac to get acces to the email etc.
b. Having the home folder on a mac mini is causing the imac to be very slow
c. Itunes can't synchronize to her Iphone. Connecint it gives her a message that synchronization has been turned off, and if i try to turn it on I get an error message saying somthing about shared access to the user folder.
I do not use a network account and have none of these problems.
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I still wan't her to use the network user account, but the user folder should be on her imac.
Kind Regards
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I do not think you can move migration assistant for this situation.
The mac mini is a osx snow leopard server, running openDirectory, DNS and E-mail, so its not like she is logging into the server.
Her imac is bound to the OpenDirectory and she uses an openDirectory network user account to log in on her imac.
But the user folder is saved on the server, which is very nice if you have a bigger server with faster disks, and more mac clients to log into.
But in this situation she only uses her imac, and the performance of having the user folder on the server is not good enough, as well as the other problems I have with itunes sync etc.
So I do not think it's a job for the migration assistant.

User Home Directory settings in dock using WGM

Hello all:
There has to be a simple answer to this problem as I have successfully done this in the past on a Panther server.
I just upgraded to Tiger server and want to include the user's Documents, Home Directory, etc in their Dock. However, I can't seem to find the correct procedure.
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Message was edited by: Gage1

Yeah, in my initial post I said that the user share shows up on the desktop, if those options are selected.
The problem is that if those Finder options aren't selected the users don't have quick access to their user directory. They literally don't know it's there. Worse since 'All My Files' are the default in 10.8 they don't even get it in new finder windows.
The most peculiar issues is that the first time a user logs onto the computer with their domain credentials IT DOES WORK; their user directory shows up in the dock, and it does NOT show up on the desktop. On subsequent logins this is reversed.
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