Article:		Discover the Power of Open Directory
Subject:		local home dir?
Date:		2007-06-06 03:47:32
From:		noahgift
Response to: local home dir?
I can't agree with you more! I LOVE network home directories. I LOVE network Operating systems. For several months I worked off of a netbooted OD client with NFS Home Directories. Stay tuned for the second article. I mentioned in my summary this barely scratches the surface of Open Directory. In the second article we will setup a common NFS Home Directory for a Cent OS/RHEL client and an OS X client. This has never been documented before and makes your Mac a true *nix machine. In the third article we get even crazier and setup network home directories for a Windows Machine served up off of a Mac, and authenticated to Open Directory! There are some cases where you would need to authenticate to Open Directory, yet keep a separate offline folder. Specifically, you may have an expensive Final Cut Pro Suite that does uncompressed HD editing directly off of a XSAN. You may not want to keep your user directory on the network if you have a poor infrastructure as it could cause network hangs. If you have a great network infrastructure with expensive Cisco switches and GigE throughout the building then it probably won't be an issue.

Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

• shamless plug & I look forward to the windows article
  2007-06-07 02:10:32  Jerky [View]
  
  
  I've always liked multi platform interoperability projects. I've been slowly compiling and publishing my notes on things like this.
  
  Since the second article isn't out but if anyone would see a bit more about how to get Linux(and some other UNIXes) working with NFS and Open Directory:
  
  http://www.jerkys.org/wiki/x/OwAf
  http://www.jerkys.org/wiki/x/YgAf
  
  I am looking forward to see how the Windows client is approached. That's the one I've spent the least amount of time with.
• shamless plug & I look forward to the windows article
  2007-06-07 04:22:00  Noah Gift | [View]
  
  
  Glad to see your using Open Directory to talk to *nix clients! Both kerberos and ldap authentication just work out of the box with OD.
• shamless plug & I look forward to the windows article
  2007-06-07 10:49:54  Jerky [View]
  
  
  Open Directory definitely makes it easier. I tried for many years to wrap my head around LDAP & Kerberos auth using different linux and UNIX flavors and just couldn't get it. A few checkboxes and text fields and you have a fully functional Directory and KDC. Maybe now after seeing it fully working it would be a bit easier to go back and setup a linux on linux auth setup but using Open Directory cleared up some of the haze and is much simpler to get going.
• shamless plug & I look forward to the windows article
  2007-06-07 15:31:37  Noah Gift | [View]
  
  
  I completely agree. I often use OS X as a prototyping tool for Linux. If I wonder how something works on Linux, I set it up on OS X, look at the config files etc.