We have a very small office with a very small network -- 12
computers, 6 Macs (OS X Tiger) & 6 PCs (Windows XP SP2).
Around 4 years ago we purchased an original Xserve to act as our
shared network file server, and while it was daunting to set up and
configure back then, once it was set up and running it worked very
well for us without too many issues for the past few years.
However about 2 weeks ago the Xserve's hard drive was reporting lots
of cross-linked files and neither DiskWarrior nor Apple Disk Utility
could resolve the issues, and based on research it seemed like the
smartest thing to do would be to wipe the drive clean, reinitialize
and reinstall.
Since the version of OS X Server that came with the Xserve was old
(10.1), I thought it might be a good idea to purchase 10.4 since it
seems it's come a long way.
I did so and installed it last week and then spent a couple of days
setting it up & configuring it to get back the functionality we had
previously.
Throughout the process, I noticed some differences in the install/
configure process, one of which being able to specify the server as a
"Standalone Server" and avoiding Open Directory. In reading the
server docs it seemed like this was a much simpler option and
appropriate since we were only using the Xserve for its sharepoints
and we were not using it for anything more complex like being a
Windows PDC. So I chose this "Standalone Server" option.
All seems to work as planned, I am only running AFP service, DNS
service, and Windows service.
The 6 Windows PCs on the network are all set up to not use a domain
and to belong to a workgroup "GSC".
On the Xserve, I have set up Windows service as "Standalone Server"
and workgroup as "GSC".
80% of the time, the Windows users can go to their Network Places and
see the "GSC" workgroup and see the Xserve within the workgroup and
connect to it.
The other 20% of the time they can not see or connect to the Xserve.
Under the Logging section of Windows Service within Server Admin I
see the following errors whenever the PCs can't connect:
