I run a relatively small graphics lab (40+ stations) with a mix of
older client machines (several G3s, a dozen or so G4 450s, and the rest
either mirrored doors DP G4s or 867 G4s). We have a DP G4 XServe.
We have about 900 students and faculty in our db with the bulk of them
assigned to a workgroup called University (univ). We are running
network home folders for everyone.
I started all the computers out with 10.3.1 (10.3.2 for the 12 Final
Cut Pro stations) and tried to upgrade them to 10.3.4 last Spring. Big
mistake. The network home folders stopped loading and the log in just
sat there forever.
For most of last year we thought (Apple included) that it was a DNS
timeout issue. The DNS server was taking too long to reply to the
client and the client was missing the very short window for accessing
and mounting the home folder.
Subsequent OS updates failed to fix this until 10.3.8. Now I have done
some small experiments with 10.3.8 on a few of my stations and it seems
to work. But...
Now I am planning a new lab, all G5 iMacs with a G5 server acting as a
replica. These machines all will have 10.3.8 on them, as well as a
fresh build of all our apps and drivers. My problem is that none of my
users can log in to the new G5 clients, either through the replica or
directly through the master directory server. The only exception to
this are users with NO GROUP AFFILIATION.
That is, if I assign a user a group to be in, even if there are no
preferences set for that group, that user cannot log in to the new G5
clients. If I remove the group affiliation, bingo! the log in succeeds
and the home folder mounts correctly.
BTW, I can reproduce this error from scratch with the new server. As a
test I used the new server -- fresh from the box -- as a directory
master, added some new test users, created a new group, gave some of
the users the group affiliation and bingo! same set of results. remove
the group affiliation, the new users mounted their home folders ok. And
I used a brand new iMac fresh from the box with only the Directory
Access file set to point to the new server.
Has anyone seen anything like this? I am really stumped as to what it
could be. I'm thinking now that my earlier problem was not a DNS
timeout error but was related to this group affiliation block on the
home folders mounting correctly. But I have no idea how to fix this.
Even Apple doesn't know what to make of it.
Ira Friedwald
FPA Media Arts Center
Portland State University
