Mac OS X: home directories for LDAP users? (NFS performance? local homes?)

noksagt

Registered
The Mission: LDAP Authentication with Persistent Home Directories
I have a FreeBSD server. It is running LDAP and Samba to be a PDC for several windows clients. I would also like to use the server for authentication of OS X clients. I couldn't get Active Directory authentication on OS X to work, but I could get LDAP authentication to work using these instructions

Before I setup NFS-mounted homes per those instructions, they were given a default home directory which they did NOT have write privileges to (as expected). Logoffs worked fine & performance was great. But I want persistent home directories. I would prefer these be on the server, but would accept if they were local on the client.

The Current Problem: NFS home directories are flaky
I setup NFS-mounted homes, per the instructions on that page. People can see their home directory fine, but there are periodic freezes & logging out doesn't work! Programs exit & the screen goes blue, but the logon screen never comes back up. We do a hard reset.

Current Configuration
Client:

opts="-b net -P -s"

which was suggested by the instructions. I don't really know what each of these options does & haven't found them in the man pages on OS X that I've searched through. Anyone?

The server's /etc/exports is

/home -alldirs xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

and in /etc/rc.conf:

nfs_server_flags="-u -t -n 8"
mountd_flags="-r"

The server's /home is on a separate partition. It is currently using ~100 GB. People's home directories are as large as 8 GB. We have a gigabit connection.

Questions
Why might NFS homes cause freeze-ups?
Why might NFS homes prevent logoff?
Is there a way to fix NFS homes?
Is there some better way to store homes on the server?
Can I setup local homes with LDAP authentication?
If so, how?
 
I am having almost the exact same problem.
Have you found a solution for it yet?

(I am using a SUN LDAP server, and would prefer local home directories.)
 
Back
Top