Implement a Leopard Server in a classroom environment. Help please!

[Heitzman]

Hi, I have two classrooms with a total of 40 iMacs. 20 of which are running leopard and the other 20 running snow leopard. I also have a Mac Pro running leopard server but only running file serving services.

The 40 iMacs are bound to the schools AD network. This also provides the machines with internet access

I would like to make it so the the home directories of each student could be stored on the Mac Pro server so that whichever seat the student logs in to they would be in the same environment and have access to their files (iweb site, docs etc)

Is this possible?

Would a solution be to bind the Mac Pro to AD so that the students were actually logging in to the Mac Pro rather than the AD server?

Is that easy? I can't find a knowledge base article that covers this scenario within my server vocabulary (low)

 

[TheCoupe]

Hi Heitzman,

I've never had to bind a mac server to open directory before, so not so sure what that issues that may bring. What I have done in the past however, is to set up the macs and mac server on a seperate network, with home directories etc all hosted by the server to allow for hot desking.

Then I had configured the second ethernet on the server to connect to the windows network. I then created a proxy on the mac server to allow the mac network to use the windows network for internet. From memory, the proxy was required so as to fool the windows network into thinking that it was just the server that was accessing the internet all the time.

It is probably about 10 years since I've set up a network like this in a school, so I'm going on old memories lol.

What I would suggest, is rather than potentially mess up your server, put in another drive and clone your 'master' system to it. Then try binding your server to the AD and see if the client computers can authenticate with it. On snow leopard, you need to go into the system preferences -> Accounts -> Click on Login Options, then join your server so that it knows where it can authenticate.

Once you have one client computer authenticated and surfing the interweb, then you can set upon configuring groups, homeshares etc on the server.

If everything fails, simply clone your master system back to your main drive, then try again.

It was never the mac's that gave me an issue, it was how the windows server network was locked down that caused me the hassles whereby without a proxy on every mac, we couldn't access the internet, hence moving the proxy to a server.

Hope this has helped a little... it's late here... I'm tired and don't know if any of this will make sense... just hope it does lol

 

[Mactasia]

Is it not feasible for them to use their AD network homes instead?

Much more straight forward.

 

[Heitzman]

Thanks for reading guys.

Maybe we could use the AD home directories but I'd ideally like to make it as transparent and user friendly as possible with people saving their iWeb/iPhoto work normally and it invisibly being copied to the 10.5 server and back without much, if any, user interaction.

Can that be done? Our IT dept. are helpful but not particularly mac focussed so I'm doing the leg work myself.

I've read this article and I think it describes a solution but I maybe misunderstanding it.

http://www.copiouscom.com/2010/08/m...file-server-backed-portable-home-directories/

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

 

[Mactasia]

I've been using AD Dome directories for years with no issues.

On a client machine log in as the admin account.

System > Library > Core Services > Directory Utility

Under Active Directory expand Advanced Options and Uncheck "force local home directories"

UNC path from AD should be selected and most likely set to "smb". Bind, logout and login as an AD user and it will mount the AD network home