Mac OS X 10.4 Home Sync Feature

[MacRumors]

One reader noted the existance of a "Home Sync" menu extra in the final version of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger):

System -> Library -> CoreServices -> Menu Extras

"HomeSync.menu" enables a menu that gives you options to "Sync Home Now" and open "Home Sync Preferences". HomeSync is, however, a new feature in Mac OS X 10.4 Server and not enabled in the client version.

The feature mentioned here by O'Reilly when describing Tiger Server:

Apple begs to differ, and brings back one of the last truly missed features of OS 9: Portable Home Directories. Sure, Macintosh Manager made this possible back in the day, we've missed it since the bad old days, but now it's back and ready for action. It allows for full home directory syncing with the primary server, giving you the ability to check out, re-sync, and check in your home folder.

Readers will be reminded of a previous unrealized feature of Panther called "Home on iPod" which promised similar features. Details about Home on iPod were posted by Apple on their Panther feature pages but were quickly removed after their discovery. This feature promised to give users the ability to carry their home directory, files and apps on your iPod or any Firewire drive.

[manu chao]

This is almost turning into an easter egg.

[Crunchy]

I don't understand why Apple is delaying this feature, unless it's because they think the iPod hard drives can't take the heat. I have a TiBook and a PowerMac G5 at work, and I'd love to keep the Documents folder synched, as I write in my office, the library, on the road, and at home. It's really annoying to have to email copies back and forth. My trusty old 1G iPod would do the trick here with this feature.

Or they could make .Mac take care of this, and then I might bother to subscribe...

[ColdFlame87]

pretty soon are whole homes are going to be run by our single mac computer :D

[morrisce]

This is a feature to be used with a Tiger Server. You can create what you call a mobile account on a local machine that will sync up with an LDAP account on a Tiger Server. You then sync your files up with the server every time you log into the machine while on the network where your server lies. You can take your laptop home and work on stuff, and then sync back up to the server at your work, so your network home directory is kept updated. Check out the pic attached to see how it is used.

Home Syncing is just a new feature in Tiger Server. Mobile accounts could be created from a Panther Server, but your files would just sit on the local machine. Leaving my files unavailable from other network machines. This is a feature that I plan to put into use in our school district.

[~Shard~]

That's pretty cool, I had no idea this functionality existed. Learn something new every day!

[pubwvj]

Oooo.... I've wanted this feature for so long.
It is but one small step from mobile home to PDA.

[pubwvj]

they could make .Mac take care of this

No, no, no...! Not the dreaded .Mac again! I don't want to have to use .Mac to do this. I want Syncing to happen locally. Apple can offer .Mac but don't try to force users to use it.

[aswitcher]

I really wated this to allow me to keep a backup of my account on my ipod and to use that when attached to friends makes rather than just "dumb" file sharing.

[wrldwzrd89]

This is a GREAT feature for Tiger Server users. It's FAR less clumsy than the Windows implementation - that's for sure (under Windows, with roaming profiles enabled, it can take 30+ minutes just to log on if your profile is large; this is because Windows can't keep the profile on the server - instead, it copies the whole thing to your hard drive every time).

[artistry]

We've had this enabled on our university test machines for a few days, seeing how it could be used for students.

[mayo2ca]

Have anyone tried this on a network without Tiger server but with LDAP accounts and network mounted drives?

I'd test it, but I'm having issues making Tiger talk to my LDAP server.

m

[poundsmack]

mildly remeniceany of OS9

[morrisce]

Have anyone tried this on a network without Tiger server but with LDAP accounts and network mounted drives?

I'd test it, but I'm having issues making Tiger talk to my LDAP server.

m


This feature is configured in Workgroup Manager for Tiger Server. You will more than likely have to have a Tiger Server to use it. Below is a screenshot from Workgroup Manager.

[dhave_config]

You don't have to have Tiger Server.

Any LDAP server that you can write the appropriate settings into to create a mobile user account will work, just like all other account settings.

I can't believe this got posted... :) It's one of the most touted features of Tiger Server... even though most settings are on the client.

Note that you can do this with Workgroup Manager (for 10.4) and OS X Server 10.3.x, you only need 10.4 on the client, as that controls the actual syncing.

[morrisce]

it's just so much easier with 10.4 server :-)

[mayo2ca]

it's just so much easier with 10.4 server :-)

True that, but it sure beats having to buy another box to be Tiger Server and the server version of Tiger itself :)

My original question, though, was more targeted at 'how' Tiger client determines if a account is mobile or not. Does it need extra attributes in the directory (as dhave_config mentions), or does it consider any account that's LDAP+mounted directory to be mobile. (Given I've seen reports that this works with AD as well) Ah well, I'll go play with this as soon as I figure out why Tiger won't bind to my LDAP server properly.

I was surprised how many things I could get Panther to do without Panther Server, thanks to OpenDirectory being more or less just OpenLDAP with few extra schemas, that Apple gives out anyway.

[broken_keyboard]

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

No synching or anything - there is nothing to sync, since there is only one copy: your iPod.

Edit: ideally you wouldn't have to reboot the Mac. You just plug your iPod in to the Firewire port, and your name is added to the Fast user switch menu. You switch users, do your thing, and log out. The other user who was there before you plugged in can then resume.

[poundsmack]

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

No synching or anything - there is nothing to sync, since there is only one copy: your iPod.


while a great idea it would imply you have an iPod, some of us do not still. though i do much like your idea.

[mayo2ca]

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

The iPod drives are quite slow. I wouldn't want to do this unless they started using 4200rpm or faster drives. Plus, the iPod and the drive in it was not made for extensive (or constant) read/writes. It easily overheats and it's life can get very shortened when you use it as regular drive.

m

[broken_keyboard]

while a great idea it would imply you have an iPod, some of us do not still. though i do much like your idea.

I think it is the real reason for the iPod. The whole music thing is just an excuse to get people to carry hard drives around, which will ultimately become their entire home dirs.

Just look at the name: iPod - doesn't say anything about music. (but neither does Walkman I suppose...)

[earthsaver]

So, I found inside AccountsPref.nib the interface components for Mobility, which is supposed to be located inside the Password tab of the Accounts preference pane. However, I can't figure out what to tell the computer to make it show itself. Any ideas from developers?

[swissmann]

I'm not too familiar with this whole idea but it sounds interesting and promising and something I would probably use in the future.

[dhave_config]

The easiest way is to do it with a 10.4 server box and dump the user record, or read the apple schema additions enough to understand how to incorporate it into OpenLDAP. :)

Basically the user you're logged into the local machine as needs to think that it is a 'mobile user account', which is effectively a local NetInfo clone of a network user account, and the OS knows how to keep the accounts in sync.

Then you just need the various MCX flags set so that the home directory is set to sync.

piece of piss. :)

mmm... account on ipod. Hold that thought.

[scotty321]

I don't understand why Apple is delaying this feature, unless it's because they think the iPod hard drives can't take the heat. I have a TiBook and a PowerMac G5 at work, and I'd love to keep the Documents folder synched, as I write in my office, the library, on the road, and at home. It's really annoying to have to email copies back and forth. My trusty old 1G iPod would do the trick here with this feature.

Or they could make .Mac take care of this, and then I might bother to subscribe...

Hold on a second here -- .Mac already does do this with its iDisk feature, which you can keep synchronized across multiple Macs... and you can continue to use the contents of your iDisk even when you don't have an Internet connection! (See your .Mac system preferences.)

The ONLY problem with using iDisk for storing all of your documents is that it is limited in space -- your maximum amount of space is 1 GB. That's a huge bummer.

[BWhaler]

When I first read this, I was hoping Apple had a better implementation for us up their sleeves for the whole syncing train wreck that is Tiger...kinda like how they shipped Tiger without 2D quartz.

But my hopes are dashed as I learn this is just a Tiger Server feature.


Bummer.

[virividox]

Hold on a second here -- .Mac already does do this with its iDisk feature, which you can keep synchronized across multiple Macs... and you can continue to use the contents of your iDisk even when you don't have an Internet connection! (See your .Mac system preferences.)

The ONLY problem with using iDisk for storing all of your documents is that it is limited in space -- your maximum amount of space is 1 GB. That's a huge bummer.

haha and ur home folder is rarely one gb...

[qubex]

My home folder is 32GB.

I like this feature. I'm thinking of setting up OS X Server 10.4 on my 1.42 GHz Mac mini just to take advantage of it. Now, if only Server weren't so damned expensive...

[Foocha]

Just to clear some things up.

We're using Home Sync already at work. We haven't got Tiger server, just Panther Server. Home Sync is completely client side functionality, but Workgroup Manager can "enforce" mobile user accounts just as with many other System Preferences settings.

How it works:
You need to set up the Open Directory user accounts. E.g. all uid/gid/home folder information is available in LDAP. Then you need to get the automounting home folders to work. With this in place you can then log onto any workstation attached to the directory with your roaming user account. When you log on, your home folder is AFP-mounted off the server, no user data is stored locally.

Once you have a proper roaming user, you can log onto a Tiger client with it, and in the System Preferences Accounts screen, you now have a new tickbox option "Create mobile account".

When ticking this, you will be requested to log out and log in again to enable it. Next time you log in and choose to enable, two things happen: Your directory information in LDAP is synced into your local NetInfo database and your homefolder is created locally in /Users and the contents of your roaming home folder on the server is synced into it.

Now you are using a completely "local" account and every now and then (either Manually or Automatically) you sync your local home folder with the server (changes can go both ways).

One interesting point to note is that your Library folder (and as such your Preferences) can't be synced (when selecting folders to sync it is not there). I assume that this is because Library contains lots of "scratch" data (Safari cache etc) as well as your settings. If you have folders that change a lot on both the server and locally, you will end up with many "resolve conflict" dialog boxes. I would like Apple to move this kind of scratch data out of the home folders. This would help also in the case of a completely roaming user account since storing cache over a network connection is kind of pointless.

[BartVB]

Ah, this is really good news. I really, really, really need to get a hold of a dump of a Tiger LDAP server so I can try to get the Portable Home Directories working from my Linux server. A decent syncing solution is what I miss most since my switch to the Mac... Would be nice if someone could make a nice howto for this :D

[centauratlas]

I like that too and did when they discussed it for 10.3.

BUT, they need a iPod Photo 250gb for me to do it. I'd gladly pay even a premium for a huge iPod, but have to wait on Apple.

And they need to make sure the drives are fast enough and cool enough to handle it.

Add a phone and camera to it, and I'll carry it instead of my Nokia.

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

No synching or anything - there is nothing to sync, since there is only one copy: your iPod.

Edit: ideally you wouldn't have to reboot the Mac. You just plug your iPod in to the Firewire port, and your name is added to the Fast user switch menu. You switch users, do your thing, and log out. The other user who was there before you plugged in can then resume.

[Fender2112]

On my XP machine at work I use a featured called "Briefcase" to store and sync files to a flash drive or to .Mac account. I can then bring those home and work with them on my Mac. These are mostly Word and Excel files and some web pages.

I think Apple should steal a few ideas from this. It's really simple and does not require "server" software.

I sure somebody already has an Automator for this. I does seem too hard to script.

[centauratlas]

... your maximum amount of space is 1 GB. That's a huge bummer.

Exactly. If it was > 200 GB that would be more reasonable for those of us with big home directories.

[bobx2001]

does this work in the non-server version of mac os x tiger?

if so i cannot wait to try it out when i get my sister is done with my powerbook.

[Foocha]

does this work in the non-server version of mac os x tiger?

if so i cannot wait to try it out when i get my sister is done with my powerbook.
Although the functionality is built into the client, you'll need the correctly configured server in order to use it (works with both Panther and Tiger server).

[bobx2001]

Although the functionality is built into the client, you'll need the correctly configured server in order to use it (works with both Panther and Tiger server).

is it possible with out the use of the server cleint? is anyone working on a guide or a walkaround for non-server users?

[Foocha]

is it possible with out the use of the server cleint? is anyone working on a guide or a walkaround for non-server users?Since Home Sync functionality is for syncronising the home folder of a global and local user account (a new kind of a account called "Mobile") it seems unlikley that it will work without a correctly configured server.

The only obvious alternative is syncing your iDisk.

[Isidore]

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

No synching or anything - there is nothing to sync, since there is only one copy: your iPod.

Edit: ideally you wouldn't have to reboot the Mac. You just plug your iPod in to the Firewire port, and your name is added to the Fast user switch menu. You switch users, do your thing, and log out. The other user who was there before you plugged in can then resume.


You can do this now, it works in both Panther and Tiger. you use netinfo manager to change the location where the operating system looks for your home folder from /Users/your user name to /Volumes/portable drive name. Then, you just carry your home folder around in a small portable drive or ipod and plug it in to your home or work mac BEFORE you log in (otherwise you get into all sort of trouble). It's in David Pogues' book 'The Missing Manual' for Panther. Been doing it for a year and it works fine.

[Jesus]

Isidore, can you explain to all of us who don't know haw you use complicated system applications how to configure Netinfo Manager to make the system look in monted external HDDs for start-up disks instead of internal ones.

Jesus

[pounce]

with three macs at home, and my main powerbook on the go, i'd think this would be stellar. i suspect that when i hop between machines i loose things i'd like such as safari bookmarks and access to any documents of mine. i also have an ipod, so however they all sync is fine with me. i think it's a great time to acknowledge that many average folks like me have multiple computers and have to have some smart way to deal with them. bring it on apple, i'm more than ready.

[Crunchy]

I still don't understand if what's being said about Tiger server could be part of a solution to my problem: synching the Documents folder of my on-the-road PowerBook and my at-office PowerMac. It would be better if it could be set to synch only selected folders. I have about 150 GB of AAC/MP3s and wouldn't be able to synch those to my 20 GB TiBook hard drive. Ditto for others with movies or pictures. But the bottom line is: when I write notes at the library or at someone else's house on my PowerBook, it should be straightforward to have that synch up with my files on my PowerBook.

It's my impression that this has been possible with PDAs for many years. But I've never had one, so I'm not sure. If this is all already possible with iSync for Safari bookmarks, addresses, iCal items, and so on, why isn't this possible with text files, Word docs, PDFs, and their folder structures?

And if it's possible, wouldn't this be a great spur to get folks to buy multiple Macs? I used my TiBook as my office computer for 3 years, and now have a desktop, and much prefer the larger screen real estate and speed to that of the PowerBook. Laptops make great second computers as well as great first computers. So it would seem to make good business sense to implement this.

[Jesus]

In the past I have used Disk Utility to Restore my Laptop, while in Target Disk Mode, from my iMac. This essentialy makes my TiBook a clone of my iMac.

Jesus

[Crunchy]

In the past I have used Disk Utility to Restore my Laptop, while in Target Disk Mode, from my iMac. This essentialy makes my TiBook a clone of my iMac.

This is still more of a hassle than it needs to be. Ideally I'd synch up every couple of days, without rebooting. It should just take a minute on each machine. Over the 'Net would be great too. Ideally both would share the same interface, both iPod and 'Net synching. That would be more Mac-like, which is why we plunk down all the change for these boxes.

Maybe I should send a feature request to Apple on this...although I thought the original iPod @ Home description for Panther matched what I'd like.

[wdlove]

Reading the thread still don't think I understand this function. Other than it seems that it isn't a program to be able monitor functions of a house. :confused:

[manu chao]

I would prefer a simple home on iPod feature, so you can go from Mac to Mac bringing your home dir with you, and leaving no trace on each computer.

No synching or anything - there is nothing to sync, since there is only one copy: your iPod.

Edit: ideally you wouldn't have to reboot the Mac. You just plug your iPod in to the Firewire port, and your name is added to the Fast user switch menu. You switch users, do your thing, and log out. The other user who was there before you plugged in can then resume.

I would be even glad if this just worked with external firewire (2.5") drives. With firewire 800 this should be as fast as a Mac Mini or Laptops. However there are some security questions with this. You would not want that I could log into your computer locally just by plugging in my firewire drive. But this could be solved by requiring that any 'mobile' account be approved by a local admin account before they show up the first time in the FUS menu. This would leave a trace on the computer, a trace probably containing your username and password.

[manu chao]

I still don't understand if what's being said about Tiger server could be part of a solution to my problem: synching the Documents folder of my on-the-road PowerBook and my at-office PowerMac. It would be better if it could be set to synch only selected folders. I have about 150 GB of AAC/MP3s and wouldn't be able to synch those to my 20 GB TiBook hard drive. Ditto for others with movies or pictures. But the bottom line is: when I write notes at the library or at someone else's house on my PowerBook, it should be straightforward to have that synch up with my files on my PowerBook.

It's my impression that this has been possible with PDAs for many years. But I've never had one, so I'm not sure. If this is all already possible with iSync for Safari bookmarks, addresses, iCal items, and so on, why isn't this possible with text files, Word docs, PDFs, and their folder structures?

And if it's possible, wouldn't this be a great spur to get folks to buy multiple Macs? I used my TiBook as my office computer for 3 years, and now have a desktop, and much prefer the larger screen real estate and speed to that of the PowerBook. Laptops make great second computers as well as great first computers. So it would seem to make good business sense to implement this.


There are third party synchronising apps which should be able to do this (with the help of an external drive). However, complete automation might be difficult and synchronisation will take some time.

[dhave_config]

People seem to be a bit confused....

This feature doesn't make much sense unless you've used network user accounts before.

Quick background:

* By network user account, I mean where you have your user account exist, not on your local computer, but in a directory service like LDAP, Active Directory, whatever.

* By 'Mobile Account', I mean the feature of Open Directory where you can designate a user account to be 'mobile'. This is intended for laptop users, and it effectively takes a clone of your network user account and 'copies' it to to the local machine, into the local NetInfo database.

* This Mobile Account will be kept in sync with the network account when the machine is connected to the network and able to talk to the directory service. ie, change the network account password, and your machine will copy that password to your local cloned account.

* Now, what Home Sync does is allow you to keep the home directory of your cloned local account in sync with the *network* home directory of the network account.

So to fool an OS X machine into using it, you would need to convert your existing local account such that your machine believed that it was a mobile account. This probably isn't that hard, just a matter of putting the right fields into NetInfo, ie setting something like:

authentication_authority: ;LocalCachedUser;(the rest of your original authentication authority for the network account)

Oh you'd also have to set the 'original_node_name:' property I reckon.

You would then also have to define the original home directory to be a network share that you could connect to with the same username/password with the 'original_home' property.

If this sounds like a lot of work, well it kind of is.

You can use something like RsyncX or psync to achieve the same thing really. It's also just a bit more work.

I'd like to see Apple come out with a 'Home Server' edition of OS X Server that was cheaper than the 10 user version and oriented towards home users. It would sell quite well I reckon, but would have to be absolutely seamless.

Now that's a project someone could probably do... just come up with an LDAP etc installer pkg for OS X client that achieved the same thing and had some simple admin tools.

[morrisce]

This whole idea of syncing has nothing to do with .mac or any type of ipod syncing. It's not for the home user, it's a really good feature to have in a school district with laptops.

The idea of network home directories is just not efficient with laptops, hence why apple gives you the opportunity to set up a LDAP server and designate a Mobile account to that user or their computer. So when they log in they have the option to create a copy of their home folder from the server to their laptop. When someone takes a laptop off the network and uses it and makes changes to files on their mobile home folder, the home folder is synced up on the server when they log into the network again.

It's a "I can take my computer home and work on my files at work and know they will be available anywhere on the network when I sync it up again." type idea. lol

I wrote this really quick, hope it makes sense.

[sonyrules]

This would be an awsome idea if it was to come out, I know alot of my customers would love it

[wrldwzrd89]

This would be an awsome idea if it was to come out, I know alot of my customers would love it
What do you mean "if it was to come out"? It's already here (with Tiger and Tiger Server).

[Foocha]

Macrumors is normally pretty accurate, but this home page post is really inaccurate and misleading. It talks about an existing feature in Tiger as if it is a hidden unfinished feature that someone has "discovered".

No wonder posters on this thread are confused.

Arn - several people on this thread have explained what Home Sync is really about - isn't it time to update the home page story itself, and maybe relegate it to page 2? It will save a lot of confusion!

[Stewie]

The ONLY problem with using iDisk for storing all of your documents is that it is limited in space -- your maximum amount of space is 1 GB. That's a huge bummer.

Umm I think you forgot to mention that fact that iDisk is *EXTREMELY* slow

[Isidore]

Isidore, can you explain to all of us who don't know haw you use complicated system applications how to configure Netinfo Manager to make the system look in monted external HDDs for start-up disks instead of internal ones.

Jesus


Here is what David Pogues book says:

Mac OS x proposes putting all of the account holders' Home folders in one special folder (Users) on the main hard drive. -But being able to put somebody's Home folder-such as your own-on a different disk can have its advantages, too. If you travel back and forth between home and work, for example, you might find it convenient to keep your entire life on an iPod or some other portable disk. In corporate environments, a network administrator may want you to keep your Home folder elsewhere on the Windows network. (Yes, Mac OS X is that compatible) Sure, you can do It, but you'll have to exploit the sometimes intimidating power of Netlnfo Manager, a program, included with Mac OS X that's designed to let you perform just such technical tasks. You’ll find this program in your Applications/ Utilities folder. Open the program, click the lower-left padlock, and then enter an administrator's name and password. In the second column, click users. In the column to its right, click the name of the account whose Home folder you want to move-let's say it's chris. In the bottom half of the window, scroll down until you see an entry called home. In the next column, you’ll see its current location :/Users/chris (that is, the Home folder is called chris, and it's in the Users folder). Double-click this notation /Users/chris/ to edit it. Change this 'text to /Volumes/diskname, where diskname is the name of your removable disk (“Volumes" is the name of an invisible folder on your Mac OS x machine that lists the names of all disks present.) Press Enter, and then choose Domain~Save (and click "Update this copy" in the confirmation box)

Log out and then log back in again-as chris. You should see the house shaped icon on your desktop that the iPod is now, in effect, your Home folder, complete with all the usual home folder subfolders, (Desktop, documents library, and so on). You're not allowed to remove the disk from the Mac until you've logged out and logged back in under a different account. Once you've done so, remove the disk and take it to work (or wherever the other Mac OS x machine is). Insert the disk and then repeat all of these tasks so far. From now on both Macs will expect to find your "Home folder” on that removable disk. (Make sure that you've inserted it and given it time to spin up before you log in. And of course, don't remove the disk white you're Iogged in.) And by the way, the procedure described here will leave the original chris folder on the primary hard drive, an orphaned duplicate. It's not doing any harm, but if you find Its presence confusing, you can always delete it by restarting your Mac in Mac OS 9 (if your Mac can do that) or using sudo rm command in Terminal (if you know how to do that; see Chapter 16).

The above is a direct quote from David Pogues excellent book on Mac OS X panther edition.

If you make a mistake, as I do occasionally and do the connecting or disconnecting in the wrong order, the Mac will create a dummy user account with none of your files. DON’T PANIC! You have not lost anything. Change the name of your external hard drive where your home folder is and then use net info manager to change the location of your home folder as the instructions above tell you to do. Log out and log in again and you will again see all your files. Find the volumes folder (remember it’s invisible so your best way is to use the go to folders command in the finder, instructing the finder to go to /Volumes/ and delete the obviously orphaned alias to the non existant volume. You can then change your home drive’s name back if you want to (doing all the net info rigmarole again) and everything is back to normal. It sounds much more complicated than it is. One last thing. At the risk of stating the obvious, you will have to transfers the files you want to carry about into the new home folder! What I do is to use a synchronisation package like say You Synchronise to keep the folder on the machine synced with the portable drive- then the folder on the machine acts as a backup.

Hope this helps!

[JohnGillilan]

I opened "HomeSync.menu" and now the little house logo is permanently in the upper right even after a restart.

Any ideas on how to get rid of it?

[mdriftmeyer]

Before they split the operating system into a Workstation and Server edition, these "features" were built-in.

Any NeXTSTEP system could be a Master NetInfo Server, a Clone Server and what not.

The improvements are many with how they resolve across different subnets, but let me just say something:

This is how we all worked at NeXT. All our employee accounts were on a set of servers and every machine running either NS 3.3 or Openstep up to 4.2 obviously, were available for us at our leisure, freeing one to go from one system to the next and do some work not leaving one fixed to our local client user account.

What I want to see back is a Workspace Manager that has a Finder with a resizable shelf, and if I am in a very large network I can quickly browse to another employee home directory be Shift-tilde-username and check out their public folders, or if I'm in a large development structure do the same damn thing, but on project folders or what have you.

I would hope at the very least, corporations running OS X share all applications under one /LocalApps folder that is accessible by all clients instead of installing countless copies of applications on all client systems.

[Jesus]

Thanks isidore

[mheidt]

One interesting point to note is that your Library folder (and as such your Preferences) can't be synced (when selecting folders to sync it is not there).
I just wanted to stress this point.
Foocha is right. I opened a service request at apple support and they confirmed it.
This means, that you cannot sync mails, bookmarks and all the other important stuff.
Hence the marketing picture having a portable user is a a plain lie. You still need other tools to solve this problem.
Any normal synctool is cheaper than OS X Server.
Actually I don't know, why I need OS X Server now as it is not possible for non-admins to switch from network to mobile mode on a portable computer either.
Hence on portable computers in mobile mode the Server is just a file server and you still have your two mailboxes.
No big picture having a Windows Server Domain simular concept here


There is only hope, that future Tiger updates will solve this as there are other service requests for this feature.

The worst is, that this feature was announced in former press releases of Tiger in June 2004.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jun/28tigerserver.html

But in any current documentations, the word preferences or /Library is not mentioned anymore - not even in a "not included"-way.

[Thornezilla]

We are testing Tiger in a corporate environment with no Tiger Server, and no Mac OSX servers other than one X-Serve running Font Reserve Server. We have an Active Directory system in place on a .local net, and use the Apple Directory Access util to configure systems for mobile accounts for AD accounts.

We get the HomeSync menu appearing in the top menubar after creating mobile accounts (which we do for all macs, desktops as well as PowerBooks).

Since the functionality isn't available on our network (or at least we are not interested in implementing it), how can we remove the HomeSync menu from the accounts automatically created under AD when someone logs in under the "Other" option?

I've tried removing it from the local Admin account, but it still appears in the newly-created non-Admin AD user's accounts. Can I pull the HomeSync.menu file from the System->Library->CoreServices->Menu Extras directory?

[cuziwannano]

I hope this document will be helpful for all those who are having problems bind tiger to AD to utilize get portable homesync feature.

1st off, I want to note that apple support / care / software specialist are absolutely useless. They have no logic or knowledge for even the simplest networking related issue, domain / workgroup printing or cross platform support. Wow, only 1 out of 10 representatives from the 800 support actually took his time listen and try to help. (Thanks Ross) The rest of them would brush me off to the advanced networking software engineer dept which cost around $700+ per incident. “Horrible nightmare services and supports” LOL, well anyways, lets carrying on.

Since apple acknowledged that mobile account with home directory enabled is a bug and from reading everyone’s posts. I was able to found a workaround to this. BTW/FYI – portable homesync work for both Tiger client and server. Here are the steps for tricking the system. Good luck and have fun 

Assuming you have rights to a AD domain with proper share(permission) setup for home directory and know your ways around mac directory access/netinfo manager etc..
• “MAC” Bind Tiger to AD using Directory Access – be sure to put a checkbox for “create mobile account at login” and leave everything else default.
• “MAC” Under account pref -> Login options – uncheck “automatically login as” and select “list of users”
• “MAC” log out - “other….” Should appear as one of the login options
• “Win AD” Create a new AD user – be sure the profile tab is left blank (don’t worry, we will be back to update this/those field(s))
• “MAC” clicks on other and sign on with the newly created ad user account – you should get prompted to create a mobile profile – click yes
• “MAC” once signed on. Log out. – The new user should now be listed on the sign on screen with “mobile” labeled right under the name
• “MAC” signed back in as the local admin account
• “MAC” open Utilities -> Directory Access -> Active Directory – uncheck “create mobile account at login, save, and log out”
• “Win AD” edit the above AD user and select profile tab – type in your home share path and click ok. Wait like 20 mins for the AD info to sync up
• “MAC” log back in with the user account, your home folder should be mounted on your desktop. (If your home folder is not mounting on your desktop after you waited a while, read the below instructions to manually mounted the folder using netinfo manager, I prefer manually mounting it because it’s faster)
• “MAC” goto system pref -> account pref, you should now have the option to click the configure button to setup portable home sync. (Remember to set it to manual sync, automatically doesn’t seem to work properly. 4 faster and better performance, I only select and sync the document folder)


To manually force mount home directory
Launch netinfo manage -> select user -> select the mobile user account, add the following.
Smb_home = \\sun\rfs$\username
Smb_home_drive = o:
Original_home_loc =
<home_dir><url>smb://servername.domain.com/share</url><path>username</path></home_dir>

[novacodova]

I opened "HomeSync.menu" and now the little house logo is permanently in the upper right even after a restart.

Any ideas on how to get rid of it?

Hold down the apple key while dragging the icon off the menubar. The
same action also allows you to re-arrange icons on the menu bar... I too learned this today...
:eek:

[zoom77]

Forcing Portable Homes to Sync ~/Library
http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20050601101436323

With a little hacking this can be done. Don't forget in Workgroup Manager in MCX you can choose to exclude folders from the sync - like Safari's cache or the ~/Library/Caches folder.

Wednesday, June 01 2005 @ 12:30 PM CDT
Contributed by: macshome
Views: 2292
So. You've got your new 10.4 server setup and you are planning on using synced Portable Homes to backup your user's files. That's great as long as you don't care about ~/Library, which Apple has hard excluded from home syncing.

Like most things in life though, when there is a will there is a way.

Read on for the details...


Not only has Apple made it hard to sync ~/Library, they have added some nice touches to drive the point home. For example, if you try to add ~/Library to the sync list in WGM it will just vanish before your eyes. One time when I tried it, I could of sworn I heard my server laughing quietly at me...

Why bother syncing the user's Library? For most people it can be summed up in one word, Mail. Apple's Mail application uses ~/Library to store it's mail, and what is more valuable to backup than your e-mail? Not much on my Mac.

You would think it would be enough to remove ~/Library from the exclude rules on your server, but it's not. There are two more plists waiting to potentially foil you.

The user's own ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.homeSync.plist file will trip you up. You can either edit the file, removing all keys that contain ~/Library, or just tell your mcx settings to override the user's sync settings. If you are managing all of this from a server I would just un-check the "Merge with user's settings" box and override them.

There is another plist waiting to get you, /System/Library/CoreServices/mcxd/Contents/Resources/CinchDefaults.plist and this one is the key. This file sets the defaults for the whole system. Make a backup, then remove all of the ~/Library keys from this plist. Now login as a user with a Portable Home and you should see ~/Library sync.

Now there are a lot of good reasons not to sync the contents of ~/Library, but if you are careful you can work your way around the pitfalls. I would add the ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost, and ~/Library/Preferences/Mirrors directories as a minimum to your exclude rules.

I normally tell you here to have fun and read the man pages, but since there are no man pages in this case you can just concentrate on having fun.

[Hutch82]

Silly question, but. How do remove the icon now its been put there on my task bar thing?

Sorry, but i'm new to this mac malarky....

[andyblac]

Silly question, but. How do remove the icon now its been put there on my task bar thing?

Sorry, but i'm new to this mac malarky....


hold down apple and drag it out of the menubar area

[Hutch82]

Cool, thanx man. Its gone now :D