Network Home headaches.

[ozpass]

I really dislike the way Network Homes work under OS X Server 10.3, and I suspect that this dislike is due to my own ignorance of the subject, so I’m appealing to the AFP548 cognoscenti to “show me the light”.

The only way that I can get network homes to work is by placing all the users “Home folders” in the sharepoint registered for “User Home Directories” in LDAP.

I literally have to have all of the user folders in the one place, with no form of hierarchy possible within that folder.

The best way I can demonstrate how I’d *like* the system to work is the way that I’ve got it configured at a site using only OS 9 clients and Mac Manager (XServe G5, OS X Server 10.3.5). I have a folder on a separate disk entitled “Home”. Inside this folder I have a number of additional folders called “Intake98”, “Intake99”, “Intake00” etc. (it’s an educational extablishment) each of which is a separate AFP sharepoint, each of which has a Network Mount record in LDAP as a folder for “User Home Directories”.

Inside these share points are folders with the pupils’ USERNAME (note: not SHORTNAME). In Workgroup Manager I import the users via passenger. I use a custom Server URL for each user of the form:

afp://serverip/Intakexx/Username

I should point out that this works *perfectly* in Mac Manager with the correct areas being mapped when the users log in. Obviously it’s a total no-no for setups including OS X 10.3 clients.

My question to you is WHY???

I started out this info. request by stating that I’ve got Network Homes working, and indeed I have but why can’t it be made to work using a hierarchical structure such as that at my OS9/MM based site?

How can I make the network automount work in this way, or is it impossible? Must I really use a Network Home repository where every single user’s folder is inside one designated “Users” folder with no additional hierarchy?

I should also mention that it’s the network home “automount” facility that’s essential since the clients will run with simplified finder, and expecting the kids to mount their own home area is a total no-no.

Can anyone help me out or point me in the right direction? Even a simple “Tough luck, that’s the way it’s gotta be” would be extremely useful!

Many thanks in advance of replies received!

-Austin.

[ozpass]

I think I dig what you’re saying, and it’s what I’ve tried… suspect I may be missing something.

I create the share “intake00” or whatever. I add it as an LDAP Network mount (User Home Directory type). When I add the path to it as a Server URL in Passenger, however, it doesn’t automount (instead mounting “Macintosh HD” as home and creating a folder “99” in the root of said drive).

I’ve even tried adding the full automount path in the Server URL in Passenger, too…

../Network/serverDNSname/Intakexx/Username

And it still refuses to automount (in this instance generating some error about the users “Home Directory” not being in the usual place…)

I’m certain it’s something really simple that I’m missing… frustrating to be so close to a result!

-Austin.

[ozpass]

Yeah, based on what you guys have told me, it would seem to be Passenger (namely my use of it) that’s causing the problem here.

Setting up a test user manually and selecting the “User Home Directory” sharepoint that I created has previously failed… it resulted in the “User Home Directory not in the usual place” (paraphrasing from memory, obviously ) error message. I’m willing to admit that at the time I was changing far too many variables with each revision of my setup in a bid to get things working. Based on your advice I’m fairly confident that I can get it to behave as predicted. I hadn’t realised that I could select multiple users and set the home for them…. that would certainly provide a viable option to me. Likewise I didn’t know that you could sort users in WGM based on the comments field. I had been using UID as a means of differentiating my user groups i.e. using 1000-1999 for “Intake00”, 2000-2999 for “Intake01” etc.

If you can suggest a way that I can get automounting to create Home Folders based on username rather than shortname then I think that I can achieve what I require here.

Thanks so much for all your advice…. AFP548.com is head and shoulders above anything else in the Macintosh tech community. You put Apple’s own mailing lists and forums to shame. Keep up the good work!

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