Windows Server 2003 vs OS X Tiger (Active Directory)

Question

I recently purchased a MacBook... Just trying to configure Directory Access. All is going well except for one minor issue...
Once I have logged on to my Mac via Active Directory, I see it creates a user account, but not an account login (under System Preferences).
While at the office logging on to Active Directory I saved a file on my Desktop, then got home trying to login thinking I would be able to, but it is obviously trying to login via Active Directory again when it isnt available.
(the screen just shakes)
This works fine with PC laptops at the office & they do create a local account once logged on.
How do I go about achieving this with my MacBook?
Thanks,
Gavin

Answer 1

In Directory Access -> Authentication you set the order in which the system checks for accounts. Starting at the first entry in the list it looks for an account there, if it doesn't find one it moves down the list until all options have been checked.
If your Authentication settings have the Active Directory and the local accounts listed (which sounds like the case) then you need to check their order to see how they're used.
From your description it sounds like the AD should be checked first and if that fails, fall back to a local account, right?
In that case you will need to add a local account to the machine (via System Preferences) that matches the username you have on the server.
Additionally if you want to make sure that you have the same set of files, preferences, etc. when logged in via the local and AD accounts you will need to change the ID of your local account to match that of the AD account - all user accounts are tracked by ID not name so if your AD account ID is 12345 and your local account is 501 the OS will see them as two different users even if their names match exactly.
(Note: one option would be to use different account names with the same ID - that way you could choose the local or AD account depending on the username you entered, but the OS would see them as the same).
To change the ID, first log on as the AD user, open Terminal.app and run the command id. Amongst other things this will give you a 'uid' value.
Then create your local account via System Preferences and open /Applications/Utilities/Directory Access. Under the Users section you should find your local account and its UID which you can change to the UID handed out by the AD server.
Now you have two accounts, one from AD and one local, both of which have the same ID number. You can log in either locally or via the directory (if it's available) and get the same desktop, preferences, etc., etc., etc.