Topic: Macintosh clients - domain logon in a lab situation?

[n0lqu]

We are setting up a lab of new Macintosh computers (OSX 10.5.4) that need to connect to our SME Server 7.3 domain.  Since this is a lab rather than a single-user office, we will have any number of people signing on and using the computers, each needing access to their own drives, etc.  On a PC we can join the domain, then the user gets a signon screen, enters their username and password, and receives automatic access to all their network drives (a logon script helps assigns drive letters).

How can we do the equivalent with the Macintosh's, or what is the best way to set one up in a lab situation so a person can enter their username and password and get access to their stuff without having to hunt around for their network drives, make shortcuts, not have other people's shortcuts littering the desktop, etc.?  What kind of authentication, in terms a Macintosh would use, does SME Server support?  I'm assuming it doesn't support Active Directory, is it using LDAP, or something else?

[imcintyre]

Does this help?

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=40157.0

[n0lqu]

Not really, that has to do with permissions, and we're not at the point of worrying about that yet.  We *can* connect to shares on the SME server manually, but that would not be very practical in a lab setting.  We're really wanting a way to log on to the server and have it automatically mount the correct shares.  I did search the forums and didn't find any threads that really seem to cover this yet.

Thanks anyway!

[ddougan]

I have a Mac that I recently acquired. I build an Applescript to mount the shares I use on login. It looks like this:

tell application "Finder"
   activate
   
   try
      mount volume "cifs://DOMAIN;user@server/user"
      mount volume "cifs://DOMAIN;user@server/images"
      mount volume "cifs://DOMAIN;user@server/music"
   end try
   
end tell

"DOMAIN" is the SME Server workgroup name; "user" is my username; "server" is the SME Server name (all changed for this posting). I haven't tried to use a variable for the username, as I have set it up only for me; however, if you have more experience with Applescript than I do, you may be able to make it work.

HTH,

Des

[imcintyre]

ddougan;

What OS are you using?
tia

[ddougan]

Leopard 10.5.4 and SME 7.3.

[n0lqu]

Thank you for that suggestion, ddugan; that had occurred to me as likely workable "if all else fails" scenario and it's good to see sample code that we could build from if/when we get to that point.  I've done precious little Mac work so a sample script, and even just knowing that scripting in Apple is called Applescript, is very welcome information.

We're still trying to figure out a more robust/correct way to have the Macs authenticate with the network on a per-user basis, and I'm still trying to get a handle on what authentication methods and Mac-related protocols SME Server supports out of the box and/or can support -- does it support Active Directory?  Does it support LDAP?  AppleTalk?

[ddougan]

SME Server supports LDAP and Appletalk.

[exodusks]

Thanks for the help in our situation, but our next hurtle is figuring out what the LDAP mappings are for SME Server 7.3.  We're trying to bind OS 10.5 to an LDAP directory service using Directory Utility but we are unable to figure out the exact configuration match to finish the binding process. The server is clearly not broadcasting either LDAP or Appletalk at this point, because OS has a feature to automatically pick up directory services within network range.  I am convinced now that I our issue has something to do with the way the server is set up.  We are able to communicate with the domain controller, even connect to it and access files through smb and afp, but are unable to bind to the directory service.  How do we take this to the next level and configure either LDAP or Appletalk for the SME server.