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I recently inherited the responsibility for a suite of iMacs - 25 clients and a mac pro server with raid external hdd. The network always had issues with user logins so each client had just been used stand alone.

I want to finally get round to using the network and create the user profiles and back-ups etc. I wanted each of the users home directory to be on the mac pros ext hdd which I was able to do.

However when each of the users logs into the client and saves the work it only seems to be saving locally and not to the ext hdd unless they manually transfer the file across. This could be a really stupid question but is there a way for the files to automatically save to the home dir on the ext hdd?

Sorry for the long post. I'm still trying to get to grips with mac networks. Thanks

Ciaran
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From what I understand, you currently have just copied users' home folders onto the HDD and recreated their profiles on Open Directory, with the correct home folders. This is the first step to doing network logins. Next, you need to link all the client machines to the Open Directory through System Preferences of each client machine manually.

Go to System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> Lock on the bottom right corner (password) -> Login Options -> Network Account Server (Join).

Then, enter the address of the OD Server, follow the onscreen prompts, configure OD binding, and finish. Now, log out and go to the user login screen. You should see a new user "bubble" for other accounts. Type in the client user's login (as found on OD) and password and it should log in with the network home folder. All changes made on this account would only be found on the network's home folder, not the local one.

Once you have verified everything is working successfully, you are free to delete the client machine's local home folder, so it can only log in over the network.

Felix Jen
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  • Thanks for reply. I rebuilt the network and updated the client and server to the latest versions. The home directory is work perfectly now. Looks like I'll have to set local home folders anyway because iMovie doesn't play so well across network – Ciaran Jul 19 '16 at 11:36