Convert Local user to network user and other issues

[paulrbeers]

See my signature for our Macs (my wife's is the MBP and I have the MBA). I have two issues:

1. When I try to log into my MBA as a generic Network login, I get an error. It recognizes that my password is right but I get a log in error after awhile. Ideas? I have the "green light" when I set my directory server in the Login Options to XXXXXXX.local,

2. I'd really like to convert our Local User accounts to Network (Open Directory) users (in the end they will be Mobile accounts for obvious reasons). However, all the different processes I can find to complete the above just seems to fail. All that seem to end up happening is that I end up with local users on the server but not network users. Once I have completed this, I switch them over to Mobile (Which I'll need to figure out as well, but one step at a time).

I'm hoping someone can help!

 

[talmy]

I got it running under Snow Leopard Server. It might work the same under Lion Server (you didn't say what you have). You don't want to create a local account on the server. In fact you must not have a local account of the same name as the network account, so delete the local accounts first!

In Workgroup Manager (I believe it is a separate download with Lion Server), create a network account if necessary. Select the account and go to the "Home" pane. Click on the "+". The Share Point URL should be "afp://your.server.url/Users", the path to home folder should be the short user name, and the full path should be "/Network/Servers/your.server.url/Users/shortusername"

Click on "Create Home Now" and you should be good to go.

I hadn't tried mobile accounts because I decided that even using Network logins cause too much loss in performance when local and placed too much burden on the Mac mini server. Instead I synchronize important folders with Chronosync.

 

[paulrbeers]

I got it running under Snow Leopard Server. It might work the same under Lion Server (you didn't say what you have). You don't want to create a local account on the server. In fact you must not have a local account of the same name as the network account, so delete the local accounts first!

In Workgroup Manager (I believe it is a separate download with Lion Server), create a network account if necessary. Select the account and go to the "Home" pane. Click on the "+". The Share Point URL should be "afp://your.server.url/Users", the path to home folder should be the short user name, and the full path should be "/Network/Servers/your.server.url/Users/shortusername"

Click on "Create Home Now" and you should be good to go.

I hadn't tried mobile accounts because I decided that even using Network logins cause too much loss in performance when local and placed too much burden on the Mac mini server. Instead I synchronize important folders with Chronosync.

Thanks! I'll give that try tonight!

 

[BigDubya]

Thanks! I'll give that try tonight!

Any feedback? I want to do the same with my account on a Mountain Lion iMac, on which I installed server after I had been using the machine with a local account for a while.