Easy Solution? Portable home directories not syncing for returning teachers

[f47hom]

Hello all,
I work for a school district and we recently (this summer) updated all servers to 10.5. When we updated the file servers, on a few occasions the names of the user directory shares were changed (from, say Faculty to Staff). All teachers have district supplied MacBooks, and use portable home directories.As staff returned recently it became apparent that those who had been with the district prior to the 10.5 upgrade (and share name change) could not sync their portable home directories with the server, getting a message their their share is unavailable. However, all new staff have no problem syncing at all.

All MacBooks are bound correctly to the same server via LDAP. So I have come to the conclusion that there is a preference or other file somewhere in the users library that is holding the old, incorrect path (faculty vs staff). If this is correct, however, I cant find that file and could really use some help from you. My other solution at this point is to delete the user from the macbook (after backing up to firewire), then have them log back in and create a new portable home directory– not a very fun thought.

Appreciate any help you can provide.

f47hom

[gw1500se]

When you say you “Upgraded” to 10.5 do you mean that literally (i.e. you used the ‘Upgrade’ button)? If you did then that is almost certainly the problem. Everything I have read indicates that Apple should never have put that button on the installer. If you use it, your installation is hosed. Leopard needs to be installed clean and then you need to go through the agony (which is why my servers are still running Tiger) of manually migrating everything. There are good articles here and elsewhere on the best (least painful) way to do this but they are all long manual processes.

[Greg Neagle]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: f47hom[/u][p]Hello all,
So I have come to the conclusion that there is a preference or other file somewhere in the users library that is holding the old, incorrect path (faculty vs staff). If this is correct, however, I cant find that file and could really use some help from you.

dscl . read /Users/username

Will give you the details on the mobile account, including the paths to the Network Home Directory. You then might be able to edit these values.

Specifically, you’re looking for the original_home and original_home_loc attributes.

-Greg

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