Problems with Tiger Clients & Leopard Server

[mezmerrick]

Hello everyone, I’m hoping someone can help shed some light on this as i’ve spent a few days on this already and I hope i’m not missing anything obvious!

We recently purchased an Xserve with Leopard Server software. We were already running Tiger server with Tiger clients. The only thing that is changing is the server (now Leopard) where as the clients are remaining Tiger for now.

I’m am pretty sure I have setup the Leopard server correctly. We have an Active Directory for user logons and home folders, and the server as been setup with correct DNS settings, in Advanced mode, as an Open Directory master. LDAP is all up and running also.

My problem is that I can login fine on the client Tiger machine, but it does not pull up any of the preferences set in WGM on the Leopard server! Out of interest I built the machine as a Leopard client, bound to AD and LDAP and bam, everything worked fine – preferences, logins and home folders. Went back to Tiger, bound to AD and LDAP and again no preferences!! Is there some backwards compatibility issue for Leopard server and Tiger Clients?? Or…

If anyone could please shine some light on this I would be grateful!

Thanks in advance!

[mezmerrick]

So no one uses Tiger clients successfully with a Leopard server? 😯

[mezmerrick]

I have tried using both 10.5 WGM from the Leopard server, and using the 10.4 on the client.

Both versions detect the changes made in either, but the client does not apply them!

Very strange…

[mezmerrick]

I’ll check at work again tomorrow re: MCX via dscl.

I am applying MCX via computer groups/lists. I did also try individual users and groups. None have worked.

[mezmerrick]

OK, please excuse my ignorance. What do you mean by “can you see the MCX via dscl”?

My knowledge is fairly limited when it comes to things like Terminal.

I would be grateful for some more detail.

Thanks for your help.

[Eden.Nelson]

First look at dscl make sure that everything is showing up correctly.
$ dscl localhost
> cd LDAPv3
> cd [i](YOURODMFQDN)[/i]
> cd Users
> read [i](USERNAME)[/i] MCXSettings
> cd ../Groups
> read [i](GROUPNAME)[/i] MCXSettings
> cd ../ComputersLists
> read [i](LISTNAME)[/i] MCXSettings

If you are unsure about what it should look like, you can get an idea from turning on the inspector in WGM. then click on the tab with the icon of a target.

Make sure your binding is correct, use from Server.
You can also try turning on debugging on DirectoryService, and mcxd.
$ sudo killall -USR1 DirectoryService –to turn DirectoryService debug on and off.
$ tail -f /var/log/system.log –to view the log in real time, or use console.app
$ sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCXDebug debugOutput [i](0-3)[/i] –to turn mcxd debug level up and down.
$ tail -f /Library/Logs/DirectoryService/DirectoryService.debug.log

[mezmerrick]

Thanks Eden.

We’ve now reverted to Tiger Server (as per my other post you helped out with 😉 )

If we ever go back and it doesn’t work I’ll try what you suggested.

[infinitysupport]

This worked for me:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7090546

They bind (un-authenticated), Leopard OD users can log in, preferences are applied, etc.

Wish I had more details about why this works (or doesn’t).

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