Using an iMac with Mac OS X as a Server for two Mac minis

O

OstIty

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Hi all! :-)

I have an iMac and two Mac minis at home for me and my family. Since we have the same accounts on every of the macs and want to access all data on all macs I would like to set up the iMac with its big hd as a server from whom the other macs can mount the homedirectory of the users somehow, so that they are the same on each Mac. I am aware that Mac OS X Server does this out of the box with its mobile home feature, however I cannot invest that much money for my homenetwork. :-(

I already tried to find something in the documentation and using the search of the forum, but couldn't get any usefull results. Do you know if there is a way to configure the Macs the way I want?
 
Do you really shuffle among you who's using which Mac? If you primarily use one machine, I'd have the profile on that one. You can still make the iMac's drive available to all, they don't have to necessarily use network-booting for that.
 
No, I weren't thinking of netboot. I would like the macs to mount the homedirs of all users from the iMac, so that all users files are on the iMac.
 
Get an Airport Extreme, and hack it to use properly ACLs, and use that for some of the files in home folders, synchronize them there...
Or use a portable hard drive for each user (eg iPod will do)...

Or simply activate remote log in from System Preferences > Sharing, and then connect to Server (from Terminal or Finder), give the ip address or the hostname (imac-something.local ..) and connect to it with credentials (username and password for that user account). Good side of this remote log in = doesn't interrupt other users work.

Or with 10.5, use the screen sharing feature. However if another user is logged in that will most likely not work past ARD limitations.

So most likely I'd say what you want is to keep the main account details in iMac, and if a user logs in from one of the other macs, then log in to see the data he or she does not have locally by Finder > Go > Connect to Server... dialogue, authenticate and he will see the contents of his home folder on which ever mac he is using now.
 
All you need are all user files on the main machine and if there's not enough room on the first machine you then connect the other two as if they were firewire hard drives (Target Mode) and you can access them directly.

Or you can get a router and network all your computers together and get alias icons of the hard drives on the computer you want to use.
 
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