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: It seems kind dumb that you should be able to do this. Is there any real reason why you’d want to sync a home directory back onto itself? If not , shouldn’t there be a warning presented, if not an outright denial?
That’s what I would have thought. I also cannot think of a reason that you would want to do this as you are comparing the same files…
: I have that same issue on all of my clients and the server. Also, they never remember my workgroup management settings. I’ve had that problem since Panther. Is this something I’m doing wrong?
I had the workgroup settings thing a couple of times before I did the first sync. Haven’t seen it since. I’ll keep my eyes open to see if it happens again. I have a feeling it may be a preference file that needs to be created at some point during the process.
AaronAdams wrote:
Care to share the correct configuration details for those of us who aren’t quite as experienced?
OK. All this was discovered via trial and error and the Apple documentation. Your mileage may vary…
0. If its an existing user backup the home directory. If its a local account then delete it from all the machines its on. If the directory is already a network home then delete all copies of the users home directory on all the clients and slave servers it might be on EXCEPT the master. You can also delete the master as its easier and safer to start from a clean slate.
1. Make sure that the home directory you want to be make Mobile is defined in the Users configuration in Open Directory using a URI rather than a file system path. (afp://yourserver/Users rather than /Users) You can set up a mobile directory using /Users however it will end up synching against itself which is really confusing as you won’t be warned of this.
2. On the preferences/Mobility section of Workgroup Manager configure the sync preferences as necessary.
3. On one of your clients log in. You should be prompted to create a mobile home on this machine. Answer yes and a home directory will be created. You know that a mobile directory is active as the menu will have the mobile directory icon (two houses).
4. Open System Preferences/Accounts. Check that the configure button is un-greyed. If its grayed then you’ve probably done something wrong or the user doesn’t have permissions to change it. I changed the sync process to be manual rather than automatic at this point. You can also make the User a local admin at this point if needed.
5. Either from the Accounts tab or the Mobile Directory Menu perform the first sync manually. This should update the local drive with everything apart from ~Library from the Network home. At this stage I lost files on the local home directory ~Desktop and ~Documents that weren’t on the server. This may have been a mistake on my part or a result of the first sync being overzealous when copying from the Network.
6. Now create a test file. Sync it up to the network. Then on another machine log in as the mobile user, and verify that the file and any others in your networked home gets pulled from the network account when you sync.
7. At this point you can rebuild the users home directory as necessary from the backup. After updating each directory I would sync to the network. Remember that the sync doesn’t update ~Library so you will have to copy these settings manually.
Like I said, this worked for me. Other peoples mileage may vary. Make lots of backups etc. Step 1 is blindingly obvious when you think about it, but its easy to trip up on it if you are not paying attention.
MacTroll wrote:
The rationale behind excluding ~/Library was that some apps broke with this, but I was not told which ones…
Indeed. I was expecting to have to filter out Caches and a couple of other directories in Library, but would be curious to find out what apps were breaking. Curiously any attempt to add a directory in ~Library is killed by the Workgroup Manager, so I suspect that you are correct in that you could probably fix it up behind the scenes. It would be nice to have the option of synching some parts of the Library folder.
Anyway I finally managed to get the Portable Home Directories to work. Turns out I hadn’t setup the User correctly in OpenDirectory. However…
Be very careful when synching for the first time as instead of merging, the first sync blew away the files and folders in the Desktop and Documents folder as the networked version was empty. Not sure if I selected the wrong option somewhere along the line. Anyway its working now.
I wouldn’t have minded if those weren’t the two folders I didn’t have recent backups of 😕
