OD authentication/authorization into the local account

[stepansae]

Hi All,

10.4.9 OS X Server, OD, Network homes, 700 accounts, managed labs, mostly 10.4 clients

In the most of my labs are my students using network logins. But some SW is not network login friendly, such as Digidesign ProTools, or we have some workstations with such a specific audio/video hardware that having network login is just a pain.

So on some workstations, students are using one local account ie “Students” with common password or no password at all. However, these workstations are managed anyway (like power settings, network views, etc).

The problem is, that I need to have control over the use of these computers – I need every single student to login using his / her user name and password and then log out at the end of the session. On the other computers around the college I need these students to use their network home.

Is there a way how to force the 10.4 client to authenticate and authorize user against the OD and then login the user into one common local account? Login script or something simpler?

Many thanks,

Stepan

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[QUOTE][u]Quote by: stepansae[/u][p]
But some SW is not network login friendly, such as Digidesign ProTools, or we have some workstations with such a specific audio/video hardware that having network login is just a pain.
[/p][/QUOTE]

I’m not familiar with the software you mention, but I’ve also had my share of struggles with multimedia apps which are unstable with network homedirs. I’ve gotten around most of them, but it does take a lot of planning. Redirect as much as possible to your local client machines. Use NHR to redirect user caches – which uses an ingenious login hook, reduces server overhead and storage. Build your network homedir template such that the movies folder, Microsoft User Data, even Application Support dirs redirect to some local shared location. These sorts of things will typically make those multimedia apps more stable.

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