Newbie questions on Server basics for home network

[hypert]

I’m considering getting OS X Server for our home network. We have 3 Macs (G4 + 2 laptops) on the network, 2 (old!) Macs not on the network, and 2 Windows laptops. I’m thinking of getting some mini’s for the kids, and I loathe having to setup/maintain separate accounts for the kids.

So, I consider myself an OS X Server newbie. However, I run a SW group at work, am well-versed in non-Server OS X, and am familiar w/ networking concepts and a fair deal of UNIX.

:question:

Basically, if I buy Server, can I really setup accounts for everyone on the server? When they turn on a Mac, how do they pick the server to log into, instead of the local Mac? Can they log into more than one Mac at a time? If so, do Preferences every get corrupted? I can see Bookmarks esp. getting overwritten by the last Safari session to exit.

What about the 2 Mac laptops? When my Windows laptops are not at work (not part of the domain), they authenticate the login against a cached/hashed password. If the laptop is not on my network, how does it login?

For both laptops and desktops, where is the user’s home directory? Obviously, in general I’d like it to be on the server, but then what do the laptops do when they’re remote? I’ve seen some mentions of syncing home folders, so I assume that’s what happens w/ laptops. However, I also think I’ve seen this is a per-user setting (“mobile users”?), and not a per-machine setting, which would make more sense to me.

OK, that’s a ton of stuff, but I’d appreciate ANY help I could get, or some “intro to Server” info/links. I don’t want to spend all the money on Server to find out it’s impossible to so what I want, or that it takes more effort to admin the server than it does to just copy profiles around.

Thanks a bunch, everyone! 🙂

[deemery]

I’m basically doing what you want to do, only without Windows.

My wife has a normal X Server hosted account, she can log into any Mac and her files/home directory lives on the server.

For my laptop I have a Mobile account. Basically this replicates what’s on the server to the laptop and synchs it appropriately.

For both kinds of accounts, it’s not a good idea to have more than 1 machine logged in.

The magic that makes this happen is Open Directory. It’s a bit tricky to set up, at least in Tiger.

One strangeness I’ve noticed has to do with mount points for home directories. If I have User X on Mount Point A (i.e. X’s home directory is on /volumes/A), and I try to do a fast user switch to User B whose home directory is also mounted on A, I get an error. I’m not quite sure of all the details, etc, I just stumbled around until I got things to work without error, and then stopped messing with it.

I still think Apple should produce a “Server Lite” kind of product for these sorts of situations.

dave

[hypert]

[QUOTE][i][u]Quote by: deemery[/u][p]My wife has a normal X Server hosted account, she can log into any Mac and her files/home directory lives on the server. For my laptop I have a Mobile account. Basically this replicates what’s on the server to the laptop and synchs it appropriately.
[/p][/i][/QUOTE]
Thanks for the reply! Is your mobile acct tied to your [i]machine[/i] or your [i]username[/i]? In other words, if you log into a non-laptop, will you boot off the homedir on the server, or will it sync to the non-laptop first?

Also, does it sync when you log in, log out, or just at random or idle times? I’m wondering if it could really slow your login down.

Thanks a lot! 😀

[deemery]

Server accounts are tied to username.

dave

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