Windows home folders

Hello,
What are you guys doing for Windows clients on your network? Right now I am looking through the server essentials book but looking at ideas. Can you only do mobile accounts where the data is just stored on the server or can you do a sync function like with Mac client computers? Also what software you guys using to manage these users?

I can relate. Not sure that I have a great answer, but I can share what I've done.
I run a network with both pc and Mac clients with a Leopard server running SMB and Open Directory Services to enable domain users. What I've done is created a logon script that runs a regedit when the users logon the windows clients. It maps the user's My Documents to their Documents folder on their Mac Home directory.
Under WGM I've given the path for the user's windows profiles to reside within their Home directory on the server. Once they log in all of their special Windows profile files appear within that directory. NTUSER.DAT, NTUSER.INI, Cookies folder and all sorts of things Windows needs for the user's profile.
This works out pretty good...when it runs. The issue I'm facing now is that the script doesn't always run and that means their My Documents and other Windows profile files aren't in sync. Instead the user is logged into a temporary profile on the local machine and anything Saved under My Documents stays in that temp profile in that machine only. So it can be frustrating when users rely on simply hitting the Save icon in Word and then they can't find the file when logged into another computer.
By the way, everything works fine when they log into the Mac clients =)

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Can't add users' home folders to Windows Libraries - "unindexed network location" error

I am unable to add our users' home folders to their Windows Libraries on client PCs. Windows is giving an unindexed network location error.
This worked perfectly fine in WHS 2011, but is failing on WSE 2012 R2 Essentials.
I've checked the indexing settings on the server, and the correct locations are in fact being indexed.
Since several of our clients have limited local storage, I can't solve this by turning on Offline Files.
Is this behavior by design, or am I seeing a bug?
I'm guessing that on WHS 2011 the user folders are special-cased somehow, as normally one would need to include the share root in a library for federated indexing to work correctly. What is it about WHS 2011 that makes this work, and is it possible
to replicate these settings on our WSE 2012 R2 server?
Thank you.

No, our clients are not domain joined.
To clarify, I'm not trying to redirect local folders, but rather to add the (automatically provisioned) user folder on the server to local libraries. Federated search does support this scenario in WHS, so I assume it should work in WSE.
Trying to understand why I'm seeing the error. Thanks.

OS X and Windows SMB home folders=SLOW

Okay,
Here's the rundown of our mac lab setup:
14 Mac minis (late 2006, newly imaged with Mavericks and Office 2011)
2 DNS/AD DC's (dc1.domain.local - Windows 2003R2, dc2.domain.local - Windows 2008R2)
A 3rd Windows 2003R2 server (fs1.domain.local) used for file shares and home directories
Macs joined to AD using the built-in plugin (Force local home is unchecked; Mac home directories redirected to the user's network home folder)
Macs bind to AD quite quickly using the built-in plugin. However, logging in takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes, browsing users' home folders, opening files, and using any productivity software that has Autosave (Word 2011, Pages '13), everything slows to a crawl--usually a spinning beachball of death for an extended period of time. The issue gets worse when more users are logged in at once, to the point the lab becomes almost unusable.
I've scoured the web trying just about everything I came across regarding this issue (used the NTLM fix on the servers, disabled IPv6 on the Macs, etc.)
I have been patient with this issue waiting for Mavericks to come out, hoping to resolve it. At this point, it seems easier to just Boot Camp into Windows 7; at least then I can trust everything to work! I'm trying to advocate Mac use in our school, but this experience has not helped at all!
Any one out there with similar setups? Anything else I should try?

I believe I'm seeing similar behavior as well with Mac Mini's running 10.8.5 connecting via SMB to a share provided by a Windows Server 2008 R2 host.
If a Microsoft Word document is opened (using Word 2011) from the network share, is then left open, then (we presume) after the computer has gone to sleep and woken back up, when the user tries to interact with Word, they see the spinning beach ball for about 45 seconds.

Best Way to Migrate Home Folders from Dell Windows 2003 to XServe 10.6

We are migrating Directory services and File service from a Windows Server to an Xserve running 10.6. What is the best way to copy over all of the data including everyone's home folders from the Windows server to our new Xserve while preserving the file attributes?
Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Tim

Hi Jay,
good news for you - since Oracle 11g it is allowed to have a physical standby between Windows and Linux. So the absolutely easiest way would be to build up a standby on your new Linux server, do a switchover with one minute downtime at a maximum ... and that's it.
You may check ML Note:413484.1 for certification (the table shows which OS mix is allowed).
The process will be the following:
1) Let RMAN build up your standby automatically through the network while your PROD is still running
2) Once RMAN has done this job you'll do a simple switchover
If a standby solution is not an option for you, then you could use Data Pump on a NETWORK_LINK.
This means: You build up a new and empty database on your RHEL server - you create a database link between those two databases.
Then you run a full import without creating a dump file through the db-link:
IMPDP usr1/password NETWORK_LINK=db_link1 FULL=Y
You may check out Note:553337.1 for more info on Data Pump.
Transportable Tablespaces or Transportable Database with RMAN would also be an option but those require some additional prep work.
Kind regards
Mike

Mac Home Folders on Windows File Sever with AD

I know this is a pretty popular discussion and if there is a place that does this I might just not be able to find it. Here is the scenerio.
We have 26 macs bound to both AD and to OD. We have a OD Mac server that is set up in a Magic Triangle setup. Right now the only way we could get the network home folders to work is to place them on the OD mac server and then create Augmented users (from AD) and manually add the properties via Inspector for the Home Folder. So earch semester I have to create about 75 users accounts for all the students. I am wanting to use the AD plugin to use the UNC path in AD's profile page to host the home folders on our windows servers. Is there any way to do this without extending the AD schema. All I care about not creating the 75 augmented users every semester. I am happy to manage preferences for the machines via workgroup manager all I want is the Network Home Folders to be on the Windows server. Can anyone provide any guidance? I would be very appreciative.

Just to clarify we create the Augmented Users in Workgroup Manager but the Users are from AD

IPhoto not showing up -- Network Home Folders on Windows server

When our users who have their home folder on a Windows server open iMovie, they can't access their iPhoto library within iMovie. The same is true for the 3rd party app, ComicLife. Is there something going wrong where the Windows server is screwing up whatever links the iPhoto library with other apps? Users who are on the Apple server are working just fine.
Thanks for any help you can give.
For reference, this is any mac client on 10.4.9 with Networked home folders going to either Win2003 server or Mac Server 10.4.10.

In case anyone else is looking... This was being caused by connecting to the home folders on the windows server using AFP. Switching it to SMB fixed the problem.

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".

Cannot connect from iMac to Windows Home Server 2011 shares

Hi guys,
I am having dificulties connecting from iMac to Windows Home Server 2011 shares.
First of all it takes so long time to discover the share in iMac, which it's called "mediaserver". After finding it i cannot connect and gives "Connection Failed: message. If i choose "Connect As.." option i wait some time and then pops out with an error: "There was a problem connecting to the server "mediaserver". The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again."
If i try from Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server ... write in Server Address : smb://mediaserver it fails. But if i write the IP address, like: smb://192.168.1.42 it works after couple of tries. If i try now to Make an Alias for the share i get "The operation can't be completed. An unexpected error occurred (eror code -8060)."
Has anyone experienced these problems ? I have updated to Mac OS X version 10.7.3. Could that be the problem ?
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Simi

You need to reinstall the updated WHS connector for Mac. You should then be able to access your shares on WHS 2011.
The problem I'm having is I can't get Time Capsule to recognize the WHS 2011 mapped folders that show up on the desktop as a drive, so Backup won't work.

Mobile Accounts not copying home folders to local machine

Having recently upgraded my MacBook to 10.5 (and having a 10.5 server) I have noticed an error with mobile accounts. My account has not synced for a couple of weeks and I have checked all the directory settings and cannot see any errors.
I've removed all directory services and rebooted, put them back and it will create a mobile account but nothing is being copied to the local hdd. So basically it is functioning like a network account rather than a mobile one.
This works fine on our 10.4 clients but having tried different users on my 10.5 system it does the same....creates the account, mounts the server but does nothing else.
This means when you sync it says its complete but does nothing...its like its lost permissions to the folder on the server but that seems very odd.
Anyone else had issues with 10.5? We have an AD server with our users and a 10.5 server with OD replicating AD and holding the home folders.

Are you still ahving this issue?
Would you do like geekinit in this thread and post some partial screen grabs (although is problem included Windows server Active Directory and profile Manager which I will get up to soon.)
Unable to deploy home folder mobility settings through an Apple MDM server
Did you create a fileshare for Local Network accounts to put their stuff
If so where is OS X server?
Did you tell the user in OD to use that fileshare?
Here's a screen grab example
Francois.

Network Home Folders - Sometimes

Is there a way to have network home folders sometimes?
Here is the situation. (all servers and clients are at 10.3.9, but could be upgraded to 10.4.x)
In a school there is a 29 unit eMac lab and an iBook cart. The students each have a home folder on the server. When they log in to an eMac they use their OD/LDAP username and password. The OSX server authenticates them and then they use their network home folder. This works just fine.
But when they use the iBooks, they are using Airport to connect to the network. Network home folders are too slow to work over a wireless network, so they have to log in using a local account and then mount their network home folder to save files.
What I would like to do is have them login to the iBooks with their OD/LDAP information so that they can be authenticated using OD/LDAP but not use home folders when using the iBooks. (I could then put their home folders in the dock)
Is this possible?
Thanks
too many to list Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Considered, but won't work for this application.
The students use different computers at different
times. For instance the question is about users on
eMacs some of the time and iBooks some of the time.
So they would have at least 2 different computers and
many people might use either of them at a different
time. So a single computer could have many, many home
folders.
Just to press the issue: is there a reason this is a problem (disk space, for example, or security)? Because the whole point of PHDs is that you'll be getting synchronization even when multiple machines are involved. If you're worried about home directories piling up, you could implement a cron job to clean them. I'm not trying to suggest that PHDs really will work in your instance--just trying to suggest possibilities.
In any event, it IS possible to modify your users' home directory settings on a client-by-client basis. You could, for example, have your users' accounts set to use network home folders for your wired machines, but override that setting on your iBooks to point to homes on the client. To do that:
1. Open Directory Access on your iBook, select your LDAPv3 configuration, and edit it (Services pane > LDAPv3 > Configure, select it in the next window and click Edit. If you've checked "Use DHCP-supplied LDAP Server" you'll need to uncheck that and create a configuration for your server; consult the server documentation for more information.
2. When you click the Edit button, you'll get a window for the selected configuration, with tabs for "Connection" and "Search & Mappings." Click the Search & Mappings tab.
3. In the Record Types and Attributes pane on the left, click the disclosure triangle next to Users, and do two things:
- Select "HomeDirectory" and delete it.
- Select "NFSHomeDirectory" in the left pane, and replace the corresponding "homeDirectory" entry in the right pane with the following: #/Users/$uid$. Then, click OK to save your changes.
4. Reboot the client, and log in as one of your network users. Here's what should happen: on this particular client, Directory Access will still log your users in with the account settings on the server, except the HomeDirectory attribute will be reset with the value /Users/<short user name>. That's what the NFSHomeDirectory line does: the sharp sign tells Directory Access to ignore the attribute in the user's server account, and overwrite it with the string that follows. The $uid$ tells Directory Access to substitute the field with that value (the LDAP uid field). So, for user John Smith, whose short name is smithj, the client will create a folder called smithj in the folder /Users, which is on the local client.
You could in theory use this technique to place the home folders anywhere on your client (like in /tmp), but it's best to use the default /Users folder unless you have strong reasons not to.
The advantage of this scheme is that you only set up the Directory Access preferences this way on the clients where you want to have local homes--e.g., your iBooks. Once you've correctly configured the Directory Access preferences and have verified that everything works, you can copy the folder /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService to your other iBook clients, so you don't have to go through this process on every machine.
There is one caveat, however. Configuring Directory Access this way will effect ANY user who logs in to your iBook--that is, any network user on your server. You can't set this up differently for different sets of users on your server--for any client workstation, all users on the server get treated the same. This is presumably what you want, given that you don't want to server network homes over wireless, but it's important to understand the implications of what you're doing.
The instructions above assume that you're familiar with setting up configurations in Directory Access. If not, you might want to read up on it.
Power Macintosh G5 1.8/PowerBook G4 15 1.42 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Steps to upgrade and move server and home folders to new box

Hi All,
Can anyone outline the steps I should take to move my 1200 users from a G4 PowerMac Server 10.4.11 to an Intel Mac 10.5.6 and move home folders to a new drive on the new box? Can it be as simple as using the migration tool and connecting up the firewire cable? And what about the fact that the IP will need to be the same?
Many thanks for any hints,
...Tom

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as using the Migration Assistant.
Please refer to the following guide from Apple:
http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/Upgradingand_Migrating_v10.5_2ndEd.pdf
You are migrating from 10.4 to 10.5, so read that section carefully. There are still quirks in the 2nd edition of this guide, where it tells you to do extra stuff, but it won't hurt.
If you have another IP address available, use that in combination with a temporary hostname until everything is setup. Afterwards, turn down the old server and use the changeip command on the new server.
Schedule your migration to a long window of opportunity when the least amount of people are going to need it - like Friday evening (then take Monday off).

Copy Itune Music Files from Laptop to Windows Home Server

I just picked up an Acer easyStore unit which runs on Windows Home Server (WHS). This has an Itunes Server functionality and you can see the shared folders from this server in iTunes under "Shared". So, I copied my entire "iTunes" music folder from mu C: Drive on my laptop to my shared music folder on my WHS. Note I did not delete the original files from my C: drive nor have I changed the "Media Folder Location".
Off first glance it looked like all the files and folders copied to the server folder when I check the properties of each folder in Windows (i.e. the properties are identical). However, when I jump back and forth between my "Music" and my "Shared" Libraries within iTunes, it appears that the "Shared" library is less 110 songs (0.5 GB). Why would this be?
Thanks
RK

I just picked up an Acer easyStore unit which runs on Windows Home Server (WHS). This has an Itunes Server functionality and you can see the shared folders from this server in iTunes under "Shared". So, I copied my entire "iTunes" music folder from mu C: Drive on my laptop to my shared music folder on my WHS. Note I did not delete the original files from my C: drive nor have I changed the "Media Folder Location".
Off first glance it looked like all the files and folders copied to the server folder when I check the properties of each folder in Windows (i.e. the properties are identical). However, when I jump back and forth between my "Music" and my "Shared" Libraries within iTunes, it appears that the "Shared" library is less 110 songs (0.5 GB). Why would this be?
Thanks
RK

OS X and Windows home directory

Greetings,
I have a small network that I would like to consolidate running Panter server 10.3 and a mix of OSX 10.4 and XP machines.
All of the machines authenticate to my server. However, the PC users store their data in the /Users/Profiles/ are that is set up by default. I had the OSX home folders stored in a different folder. The problem is some of my users will work on both PCs and Macs and have duplicate data stored in both locations, (i.e. music, photos, etc.).
I have changed the OSX home folders to the same /User/Profiles/ location as the PCs. However, the Mac user folders (i.e. desktop, documents, etc.) get over written by the PC folders, so any files stored on the Mac desktop will be "deleted" by the PC setting. The files actually disappear when the user connects to the shared folder area on my server. The users will then be unable to access the OSX icons on the left side of a window (i.e. Documents, Home folder, etc.)
Any ideas how I can remidy this situation?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Brian

look at http://www.bombich.com/mactips/activedir.html.

Open Directory and Mobile Home Folders

Hi All,
I am a bit confused about Open Directory and Mobile Accounts! here is our scenario. We have an Open Directory setup and all Accounts are set to mobile, accounts are almost 250+, my main problem is the Synchronization Conflicts, the accounts are automated to sync every 30 mins, the problem is every now and then schronization conflict windows popups, our users are complaining almost everytime, another problem is all of the users home folder has a qouta of 5GB, problem is there are users who excedd on the qouta some goes up to 60GB and 100GB, how do i solve this two problems. i am about to loose my mind. We setup like this in order for us to have a backup of all files of the users in case problem arises in the workstation. i have notice that synching file error comes up if you have temporary files used by any applications. the home folder of each user will exclude library, trash, music and entourage databse. Please Do help me.!!! Anyone who knows..?
Environment
OD Server - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.4
Workstations - mix MacOS X Tiger 10.4.4 - 10.4.7
AFP Home Folder - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.6 mounted Xsan Volume for home folders
johnaris
PLEASE HELP!

Thanks for the info, by now i will look into that little utility that is very helpful (console!)
Yes, I was thinking of synching our users at login and logout, the problem here is that, users here has bigger home folders.. mostly about 3GB, and it will took time to login a user, about 6-10 mins, depends on the network, we have networks users that that has slow networks and fast network on video editing users. What I did is that i excluded the Library in the synch options on each unit here, since we are not using Apple's Mail and iCal, it did minimize the synching error but the temp files and date discripancies are mostly that will generate an error, I am having really problems with this.
thanks for the info i really appreciate it.

How do you change permissions of "Home" folders on a Mavericks Server??

I have a test server and test machine. I installed Mavericks and the OSX server app onto my test server and installed Mavericks onto my test mac.
I have created a Folder which will house the home folders of users, made this into a shared folder, ticked the option that allows it to be used as a homes folder. I seem to have read/write access to the folder but I have not got access to the folders within the home folder; the users home folders. As an administrator I need access to all the folders.
I changed permissions to add myself read/write access to the folders but then this breaks the home sync and when the user logs in I get an error message that says the "Home folder is not where it is supposed to be" or something along those lines.

You can enable root by gui if needed.
/System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Uitily
When you open the Directory Utility you will have to click the lock on the lower left and authenticate as an admin user. Next go to the menu bar and the "edit" menu. Click edit, then click "enable root user". It iwll prompt you to create a root password. Once you do you will have the "other" option at the login window after restart. Or if you just enter username and password, use "root" for username and the password you created for password.
When you are done doing whatever you need make sure to reopen Directory Utility and disable the root user.

Windows home folders

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