We are using the LDAPv3 plug-in to authenticate our lab eMacs/iMacs against a Sun LDAP server, with homes being created locally. Probably 30% of the time we get home folders that are not coming from /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj as they should be.
One of two things happen when login fails:
1) We get a home that is owned by root (and therefore unwritable for our users). This home is being created from some "other" default template, presumably the same one that is used to create the root user's home. I have no idea where this template lives, else I'd change it. This problem is sometimes accompanied by the "there is a problem logging in at this time" error message. This is the more common problem.
2) We sometimes get a situation where homes are not created at all. This is accompanied by the "home directory was not found in the usual location" error message (Strangely, we sometimes get this error message when logging in as a local user!). This error occurs less often than 1).
Things we have tried:
-The creation of home folders is now scripted, and happens via a loginhook based on Mike Bombich's script. Previously we were relying on OS X's built-in mechanism for this.
-We have given all lab machines statically assigned IP's in DHCP. The thought was that they are not getting the network quickly enough at startup (we see lookupd and other network services failing at startup in our system logs).
-Forward/reverse DNS entries for Sun LDAP server.
-Deleted MCX cache in netinfo.
We are using a static mapping for NFSHomeDirectory. We have it mapped to #/Users/$uid$, per this example:
http://homepage.mac.com/dansinema/
Again, not sure if this is part of the problem or not.
Any and all advice greatly appreciated! Please help!
--Andy
P.S.: We also occasionally get finder hangs at logout, such that the system needs to be manually rebooted. All other apps work fine, but the finder will not let us log out. We have our home folders being archived to /private/tmp at logout instead of at login; not sure if this is a contributing factor or not. Have deleted all finder.plist files to no avail.