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 everyones 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 (dont 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 its 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 doesnt 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>
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 everyones 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 (dont 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 its 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 doesnt 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>