With all Mac access completely offline and LDAP authentication for some odd (and at this point unknown) reason not able to hold a constant connection, I decided to use and configure the Directory Services Active Directory (AD) plugin. I could see the advantages and disadvantages of using the AD authentication method. However, my main concern at this point was to relieve the pressure on me from the powers to be with a quick-fix solution.

The main advantages would be a single set of user credentials for all computers (Mac & PC) in the school and easy (mapped) access to the users Windows hosted home folder. The disadvantage was that with the time constraints I was unable to find a way to map the users Windows home folder, Mac home folder and possible other AFP mappings at login. The workaround I used was to create a shortcut to the servers AFP path on all the Mac computers, which allowed users to list the directories that they had access too. During the coming holiday break I will be investigating further to find a solution.

So, I bound the XServer to AD without any hassle, opened Workgroup Manager, selected AD as the search path, authenticated and the users populated from AD. My colleagues and I then went to each Mac one by one and bound them to AD using a unique name. The only problem we ran into was that AD requires that the time on the client computer be the same (or close to the same) as the Domain Controller. With the occasional hassle, we synchronized the time settings on all Mac clients to our Domain Controller, which then enabled us to successfully bind.

With that all done I am now waiting for a full class login to occur to test the server reliability and authentication method. We will be purchasing a copy of Leopard server in the not too distant future and with the installation of this server upgrade, I am contemplating rolling back to the LDAP authentication as it allows for more flexibility and customisation considering the somewhat unique options our Mac network requires.

This is definately not the last I have seen of this issue…