Women in Technology

Article:		Discover the Power of Open Directory
Subject:		local home dir?
Date:		2007-06-06 02:49:43
From:		Paul_PO
Why would one want to create a local home dir on which the client machine the OD user logs in? Isn't the whole point of network homefolders that users can login to any machine that is part of the OD domain?

Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

• local home dir?
  2007-06-06 03:47:32  Noah Gift | [View]
  
  
  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.
• 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.