OS X Mavericks and Active Directory Home drive problems (NHR)

So, I'm going to document what problems I currently have with Active Directory home drives stored on windows SMB shares.

In the past when we put our macs on the active directory logins, I always untick the "Force local home" in the active directory options. The main reason is so that users take with them all of their account settings and preferences where-ever they login. This does however come with problems. It seems the mounted home drive has some permission issues which some applications have real problems with.

In the past I have installed Network Home Redirection (NHR). At login, this script runs whenever it detects the user to be a network user. It then creates a local temporary folder and creates alias' from particular folders on your home drive to the local folder. From the perspective of an application running, it thinks that these folders are normal local folders which they tend to prefer.

The default NHR setup redirects folders of known problems in OS X 10.6. But I don't think it is updated anymore. I have been constantly adding and taking away folder re-directions for the application we use in the computer suites.

Here I shall document current problems with network home preferences where NHR has worked.

Adobe Acrobat Pro 9
Seems to Crash when opening a document
Redirected folder: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Acrobat
Seems to have fixed the crash

sendLogon.app and installer

Well, after much troubles over getting NHR to also run sendLogon on startup, I decided to just make an application which ran the sendLogon script:

/usr/bin/sendLogon 145.xxx.xxx.xxx 5438 $(logname)

1. I simply made it in Automator:
1. 
2. Next I made an installation package to install it along with the sendLogon command program

I used Apple Remote Desktop's "Task Server" to install it on all managed machines. And finally I used Workgroup Manager to have it as a Login Item on the managed machines.

I think it works out better this way, as there is a little bit more control over it.

Current NHR LIclean.hook

So, after a few years of using NHR I've had to add a few more exceptions. Instead of writing them down I thought I'd might as well just paste the LIclean.hook file here:



#!/bin/sh
#set -xv; exec 1>>/tmp/out 2>&1
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin export PATH



#The line above is used for logging and troubleshooting only - if you need to troubleshoot this script, remove the "#" from the line.  Once you are done, put the "#" back at the beginning of the line.
logger "LoginHook: Starting for $1"

#Update on June 27, 2006 - added support for 10.3 clients and other improvements
#Update on July 10, 2006 - added feature so that all local users will bypass redirection.
#Update on October 18, 2006 - added $1 directory in /tmp for better folder structure.
#Update on July 13, 2007 - added Leopard compatibility
#Update on July 19, 2007 - added line to delete Clip Gallery Preferences, if they have not already been removed from the local admin's account.
#Update on April 28, 2008 - took out iHook application, as some users didn't like seeing the iHook window during login.
#Update on August 20, 2008 - due to ACL's put on user home folders starting with 10.5.4, this will now remove the ACL so that redirection can still take place on the folders with Deny Delete ACL's.
#Update on September 3, 2008 - added Office 2008 support
#Update on September 17, 2008 - deleted EOF commands, as it was causing issues with some PPC machines.
#Update on October 5, 2008 - added support for SMART board software, as they store caches in ~/Library/Application Support
#Update on March 5, 2009 - fixed issue with finding local users that matched part of the username (added -x to grep)
#Update on March 11, 2009 - added support for Adobe Acrobat 9
#Update on April 17, 2009 - added support for Adobe CS4
#Update on August 17, 2009 - added support for iMovie 09 with network homes
#Update on September 23, 2009 - added support for users with "." in their shortnames (thanks to Ben Gollmer for this addition)

LocalAdminUser=`dscl . -list /Users uid |grep 501 |awk '{print$1}'`
Local=`dscl . -list /Users |grep -x $1`

#This script will re-direct several folders from a user's network home location to the local machine to help with performance.

if [[ "$1" == "$Local" ]]; then
        exit 0
fi

eval home_loc=~$1

#This section will verify that there are no DENY DELETE ACL's on the folders - and if so, remove the ACL so that redirection can still take place.

aclline=`ls -led "$home_loc"/Library/Caches | grep "deny delete" | head -1 | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sed 's/^[ \t]*//'`
chmod -a# $aclline "$home_loc"/Library/Caches

aclline=`ls -led "$home_loc"/Library/Fonts | grep "deny delete" | head -1 | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sed 's/^[ \t]*//'`
chmod -a# $aclline "$home_loc"/Library/Fonts

aclline=`ls -led "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/SMART\ Technologies\ Inc/Gallery | grep "deny delete" | head -1 | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sed 's/^[ \t]*//'`
chmod -a# $aclline "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/SMART\ Technologies\ Inc/Gallery

#This section will delete the Fonts, Microsoft User Data, AppleWorks User Data, SMART Board Gallery folder and Microsoft Preferences folders from the current user's network home location
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Caches
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Fonts
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Documents/Microsoft\ User\ Data
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Documents/AppleWorks\ User\ Data
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Office
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/SMART\ Technologies\ Inc/Gallery
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Google

#This section will clean up the local drive, so that iMovie 09 will work with network homes
rm -rf /iMovie\ Events
rm -rf /iMovie\ Projects

#This section will make a folder for the current user in /tmp
mkdir /tmp/$1/
mkdir /tmp/$1/Adobe
#mkdir /tmp/$1/Adobe/Acrobat
#mkdir /tmp/$1/Adobe/Illustrator\ CS4
mkdir /tmp/$1/Google

#This will copy several Microsoft folders of the local admin user (make sure this account was the first account set up on the client - with UID 501) to /tmp.
cp -R /Users/$LocalAdminUser/Library/Preferences/Microsoft /tmp/$1/Microsoft/
rm -f "/tmp/$1/Microsoft/Clip Gallery Preferences"
cp -R /Users/$LocalAdminUser/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Office /tmp/$1/Office2008
cp -R /Users/$LocalAdminUser/Documents/Microsoft\ User\ Data /tmp/$1/Microsoft\ User\ Data/

#This will create the iMovie 09 folders needed to work with network homes
mkdir "$home_loc"/Movies/iMovie\ Events
mkdir "$home_loc"/Movies/iMovie\ Projects

#This will create an AppleWorks User Data folder in /tmp.
mkdir /tmp/$1/Appleworks

#This will create the user's Caches folder in /tmp.
mkdir /tmp/$1/Caches

#This will check for the Notebook application (SMART) and create a SMART folder in /tmp (if needed).
SMART=`test -e /Applications/Notebook\ Software/Notebook.app && echo Yes`

if [[ "$SMART" == "Yes" ]]; then
mkdir /tmp/$1/SMART
mkdir -p "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/SMART\ Technologies\ Inc/
fi

#This will change ownership of all files in /tmp/$1 to the current user
chown -R `dscl /Search -read /Users/$1 UniqueID | awk '{print $2}'` /tmp/$1

#This will create the Microsoft and Adobe folders, inside the Application Support folder, for the user.
mkdir "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft
#mkdir "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe

#This last section will set up symbolic links for the current user.
ln -s /tmp/$1/Caches/ "$home_loc"/Library/Caches
ln -s /Library/Fonts/ "$home_loc"/Library/Fonts
ln -s /tmp/$1/Appleworks "$home_loc"/Documents/AppleWorks\ User\ Data
ln -s /tmp/$1/Microsoft/ "$home_loc"/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
ln -s /tmp/$1/Microsoft\ User\ Data/ "$home_loc"/Documents/Microsoft\ User\ Data
ln -s /tmp/$1/Office2008/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Office
ln -s /tmp/$1/SMART/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/SMART\ Technologies\ Inc/Gallery
#ln -s /tmp/$1/Adobe/Acrobat/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Acrobat
#ln -s /tmp/$1/Adobe/Illustrator\ CS4/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Illustrator\ CS4
ln -s /tmp/$1/Adobe/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe
ln -s "$home_loc"/Movies/iMovie\ Events /iMovie\ Events
ln -s "$home_loc"/Movies/iMovie\ Projects /iMovie\ Projects
ln -s /tmp/$1/Google "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/

logger - "LoginHook:  Finished for $1"

#sendLogon extras (IP address and Port number has been taken out)

/usr/bin/sendLogon 123.456.32.1 1234 $1
/usr/bin/sendLogon 123.456.32.2 1234 $1
/usr/bin/sendLogon 123.456.32.3 1234 $1

I've commented out a few lines so I could see what I've done in the past.


Addition:

so, I've now found that Adobe Bridge has trouble opening. After some investigation it looks like Bridge 4 (CS5) doesn't like symbolic links, but prefers to use the networked folder.

After looking into all the Adobe Applications, the only one now which needs the symbolic link is Adobe Acrobat Pro. So I'm re-writing this script to create a symbolic link from ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat a the local folder.

I'm also getting rid of the Adobe symbolic link so that bridge works.



Addition (08/11/2012)

A few months on and I soon realised that although Illustrator is behaving much better then it did do in the past, I found that if it did not have a symbolic link to the local drive it would have trouble saving and exporting files to the desktop, making it appear that the files were saved, when in fact they had 0kb! This caused a bit of trouble with students at the time, and backups had to be retrieved.

I then added a symlink with ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS5.

I also realised that if it was a new student which didn't have an Application Support folder, NHR would be unable to create an Adobe folder inside this. I hence added a few lines to make the folders:
~/Library/
~/Library/Application Support/
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/

sendLogon and NHR for OS X 10.7

So, I'm just setting up some new machines with OS X 10.7.4 installed. I tried to install the NHR and sendlogon scripts which I implemented here, but looking into it, it doesn't seem to work.

The NHR side which redirects folders from the networked home drive to a local folder works beautifully, but when I browse the internet, it doesn't let me on sites which i am authorised to go on? So, to conclude, the LIsendLogon.hook isn't running properly.

The one thing I wanted to happen was to get the loginhook to run a script which in turn ran a sendLogon script and the NHR script. But it was an 'either/or' situation. I could never have both scripts running no mater how hard I tried.

After trying many different things, I ended by just giving up and putting the lines for sendLogon into the LIclean.hook script at the bottom. Very frustrating.

I did find an interesting and useful article on running a centralised login script here.

I also found a nice little course on the subject of scripting which I found very useful here and another here

Creating a Master Image for Mac OS X 10.7

So, I've just got a bunch of new iMacs and I'm creating a new master so I thought I could note down what I'm doing.

1. Go through the initial steps of OS X 10.7.3
1. username - Administrator
2. fill in details
2. setup some System Preferences
1. in System Preferences > Users
1. Guests
1. Tick "Allow Guests to log into this computer"
2. Login Options
1. tick the "show username and password fields"
2. go to Join and open Directory Utility
1. Active Directory
1. domain students.chesterfield.ac.uk
2. name the computer
1. domain admin username and password
2. LDAPv3
1. put in mac server address
2. its all automatic
3. goto Edit > Enable Root User
1. enter a special root password
2. System Preferences > Network
1. Ethernet > Advanced > Proxies > Automatically Detect Settings
3. System Preferences > Date and Time
1. tick "set date and time automatically" and give it a****dc1.chesterfield.ac.uk
4. System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Management
1. Tick Remote Management
2. click "Options"
1. tick all of these
3. click "Computer Settings"
1. tick all of these
2. put a password for VNC
3. Install stuff:
1. Sendlogon
1. for proxy login
2. NHR
1. for Caches and other network folder redirections
3. Fix NHR and Sendlogon
1. so that sendlogon is added to the NHR login script
4. UniFLOW client
1. for print management info
5. Intuos drivers
1. for tablets
6. Brushes Viewer
7. Adobe Creative Suite 5
1. mount the CD Master dmg file and run the normal install file
1. don't need to drag it to the local drive
8. Adobe Acrobat Pro 9
1. just drag it to the Applications folder
2. run it once to put in serial number
9. Update Photoshop Camera RAW
10. Burn 2.5.1
1. for burning a multitude of different disks and ISO's
11. Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.5
1. just drag app to Applications folder
12. Celtx 2.9.7
13. ClickView 2.0.0
1. comes with Flip4Mac
14. DivX 7.3
15. DropBox 0.7.110
1. drag to Applications folder
16. Firefox 13.0.1
1. drag to desktop
2. if there's no profile in the users library it defaults to "use system settings"
17. Google Chrome version 20
18. Sketchup 8.0.14345
19. Final Cut Studio 2



1. Running Final Cut Studio 2 from disk it comes up with:
1. You can't open the application FinalCutStudio.mpkg because PowerPC applications are no longer supported.
2. Doh!
2. I did a search on Google and found this Blog Article on how to manage it
1. Basically run the installer from Command Line by typing the following:
2. sudo installer -package /Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio/Installer/FinalCutStudio.mpkg -target /
3. Came up with lots of Errors though, as described in the blog:
1. 2012-07-09 13:02:25.728 installer[26889:9803] PackageKit: Token definition is missing bundle identifier, skipping: {
2.     path = "/Applications/Final Cut Pro.app";
3.     searchPlugin = CheckPath;
4. }
4. looks like it's searching for previously installed versions?
3. In the end it came up with:
1. installer: The install was successful.
4. although it usually takes a few hours to install, this took 8 minutes
1. It's because it didn't install the extras
2. To do so, you can do it from the disks:
1. Audio Content for Soundtrack Pro
2. Motion Content
3. DVD Studio Content
4. LiveType Media 1 and 2
1. comes up with the same PowerPC errors
2. Type:
1. sudo installer -package /Volumes/LiveType\ Media\ 1/Installer/LiveTypeMedia1.mpkg -target /
2. sudo installer -package /Volumes/LiveType\ Media\ 2/Installer/LiveTypeMedia2A.pkg -target /
20. XDCAM Final Cut Pro Plugin
1. Needs Final Cut Pro 6.0.3 or above. Installed version is 6.0.1.
1. Update via Software Update
21. Handbrake 0.9.6
22. iWork '09
23. Logic Studio
1. Same error as with Final Cut Studio
2. Found this website with similar results
3. Typed this:
1. sudo installer -package /Volumes/Logic\ Studio/Installer/LogicStudio.mpkg  -target / -verbose
2. decided to use verbose mode to see what exactly happens. Most interesting.
4. I think it helps if you have all your disks saved as disk images and all mounted at once. Seems to work.
5. Not sure if it installed the extras. To make sure I ran the Audio Content installer
6. What might be worth looking into is this forum above for installing extras
1. ran this as in the website above:
1. for f in /Volumes/Jam\ Pack\ Content\ 1/Installer/Packages/*.pkg; do sudo /usr/sbin/installer -pkg "$f" -target / -verbose; done
24. Maya 2008
1. although not the licence aw.dat file
25. Microsoft Office 2011
26. MPlayer OSX Extended R14
1. Plays nearly all Video formats
27. Nikon ViewNX 2
1. for Nikon Camera RAW stuff
28. Omni Disk Sweeper 1.7.2
1. for checking disk space issues
29. Libre Office 3.5.4
1. basically an off-shoot of OpenOffice
30. RealPlayer SP 12
1. for streaming stuff
2. might have to put in proxy settings?
1. not even sure if we're using this?
2. yes, it is setup by autodetect settings
3. set through ~/Library/Preferences/com.RealNetworks.RealPlayer
4. particularly "RealPlayer\UseSystemHTTPProxy" string "1"
31. Skype 5.8.0.945
1. you never know!
32. SMART board 10.8
1. Apparently rolling out 11 next year
33. VLC Media Player 2.0.2
34. Canon MFD drivers
1. whoops, missed off these!
4. Log out and back in as Networked user to connect to internet (with sendlogon)
1. Note: needs to be on the Mac VLAN to use sendlogon
2. Test Safari and other things for internet connectivity
1. working
3. Do an Apple Software Update
1. update from 10.7.3 to 10.7.4
2. airport update
3. iTunes 10.6.3
1. connection reset by peer
2. looks like a manual download
4. Camera RAW update
5. etc...
4. Microsoft Update
5. Adobe Update
6. App Store Updates!
1. it's a new one to me
2. you also NEED an Apple ID!
3. having a few problems downloading BIG updates for iPhoto and iMovie

1. seems to stop 400MB into the download and says it's having trouble
2. Lucky thing is that it carries on from where it left off, so just keep pressing the retry button and it'll eventually download it all
4. Install more Apps:
1. iBooks Author
1. for making iBooks!
5. SketchBook Express
1. made by SketchBook Pro people
6. Need to look into App Store Permissions
1. can anyone install via the App Store?
2. is it just saved to their Home Drive?
3. Confussed!
4. this forum might help
7. Test all Applications:
1. Illustrator
1. Working
2. Photoshop
1. Working
3. InDesign
1. Crashes when you try the Spell Check
1. turns out NHR gives the wrong permissions for the ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe folder
2. I changed NHR so that this Adobe folder is a symlink instead of the child folders for Illustrator and Acrobat
1. added these lines to LIclean.hook
1. rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe
2. mkdir /tmp/$1/Adobe
3. ln -s /tmp/$1/Adobe/ "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe
3. overwrote LIclean.hook in NHR.pkg/Contents/Archive.pax.gz
1. first unzip it
2. replace file
3. zip it back up again:
1. ditto -c --keepParent /Archive/Library Archive.pax
2. gzip -9 Archive.pax 
4. Fireworks
1. working
5. Flash
1. working
6. Dreamweaver
1. hangs when loading up.
2. updating to 11.0.4

1. now it prompts to load up extension manager every time!
2. but it does end up loading Dreamweaver
7. Acrobat Pro
1. Working
8. Aperture
1. Working
9. Audacity
1. Working
10. BookSmart
1. permissions issue with .app folder
1. gave everyone read only
2. crashes on load up
1. found this entry in Console Log
1. 06/07/2012 15:21:23.621 [0x0-0xb40b4].com.blurb.booksmart: log4j:ERROR setFile(null,true) call failed.
2. 06/07/2012 15:21:23.621 [0x0-0xb40b4].com.blurb.booksmart: java.io.FileNotFoundException: metrics.log (Permission denied)
3. 06/07/2012 15:21:26.275 com.apple.launchd.peruser.2069522553: ([0x0-0xb40b4].com.blurb.booksmart[6906]) Exited with code: 1
2. assuming it's a problem with folder permissions in ~/Library/
3. not sure it's worth fixing?
11. Word
1. worked
12. Powerpoint
1. worked
13. Excel
1. worked
14. outlook
15. Google Chrome
1. crashes on startup
1. loads a window with google mail login screen and then sends crash report.
2. just tried creating a symlink to the local drive for ~/Library/Application\ Support
1. ln -s /Users/Shared/temp/Google ~/Library/Application\ Support 
3. Works a treat
4. Need to add this to NHR scripts
1. Viewed the Package contents of NHR.pkg
2. unzipped Archive.pax.gz
3. went into Library/Scripts/
4. edited LIclean.hook
1. added these lines:
2. mkdir /tmp/$1/Google
3. rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/Google
4. ln -s /tmp/$1/Google "$home_loc"/Library/Application\ Support/
5. made it into an Archive.pax.gz file (found in this forum)
1. ditto -c --keepParent /Volumes/General\ Work/Problem\ Solve/NHR\ with\ new\ redirections/Archive/Library /Volumes/General\ Work/Problem\ Solve/NHR\ with\ new\ redirections/New-12-8-2012/Archive.pax
2. gzip -9 /Volumes/General\ Work/Problem\ Solve/NHR\ with\ new\ redirections/New-12-8-2012/Archive.pax 
6. put it back in the Package Contents
5. done
2. Picks up Proxy settings from operating system
16. Firefox
1. works a charm
2. Picks up proxy settings from system
17. Celtx
1. worked
18. Clickview
1. needs the server set as clickview.s*******.chesterfield.ac.uk
1. set in file: ~/Library/Preferences/clickview.player.server.plist
2. either set on xserves managed preferences
3. or on the OS X managed preferences
19. fix everything please
1. works beautifully
20. Sketchup
1. worked
21. HandBrake
1. Worked
22. iBooks Author
1. Worked
23. iMovie
1. Worked
24. iPhoto
1. prompts to upgrade library and fails as it is on an unsupported media
1. Known Problem
25. iTunes
1. worked
26. Pages
1. Worked
27. Keynote
1. worked
28. numbers
1. worked
29. Libre Office
1. worked
30. MPlayer OSX extended
1. Worked
31. realPlayer
1. worked
32. SketchBook Express
1. Worked
33. Skype
1. worked
34. Notebook
1. needed license but we have it
2. worked
35. Final Cut Pro
1. worked
36. Logic
1. worked
8. Log out of Networked user account
5. Image a Master from the machine
1. Unbind from Active Directory
2. delete unwanted files
3. Boot from another disk. Either:
1. Netboot (if possible?)
1. not possible because server is running OS X 10.4.9 with Deploy Studio RC20
2. boot from install CD, mount server drive and image machine using disk utility
1. does not come with disks anymore
2. found this article explaining the new procedures
1. boot up into Recovery Mode (command + R)
1. Nice article here about Recovery Mode
3. target disk mode to a machine which can netboot (or run the /Utilities/Deploy Studio Runtime)
4. Make a image from a disk
6. test the master image works
1. get another machine
2. Unmount disk which is being re-imaged and image it. Several Ways:
1. target disk mode to another machine
2. Recovery mode (command + R)
1. go to terminal
2. type:
1. mkdir /Volumes/Images
2. mount -t afp afp://admin:password@name.of.server.uk/Images /Volumes/Images
3. exit terminal
4. open disk utility
5. restore
6. source - select disk image on the server
7. target -  select partition
3. done
7. 
   
1. 
   

Safari Crashing on OS X 10.6.8 for Active Directory Users

It appears on the machines where they were 'accidentally' updated to OS X 10.6.8 (we currently run OS X 10.6.6), Active Directory users cannot run Safari as it crashes on launch. For local users Safari works fine. I have deleted the ~/Library/Safari/ folder and also the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.safari* files.

My initial conclusion is that Safari doesn't like the permissions on certain folders in the ~/Library folder. e.g. Caches folder. I am used to this issue hence the installation of the useful program "NHR" (Network Home Redirection"), which currently redirects the ~/Library/Caches folder to a local location. I shall look into pinning down which folder needs redirecting. I have found this post which suggests ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db causes crashes. I shall continue to add to this post.

OS X multiple login scripts - sendlogon and NHR

So, after having NHR running for quite a while, it looks like we also need to have sendlogon running at login. This isn't the first time I've had to have multiple login scripts. I remember doing this for BootPicker back when it wasn't included in the operating system.

So to do this I will use the system already in place thanks to NHR. At the moment, at login, the file /etc/login.hook runs. This runs any scripts within the /etc/hooks folder which begin with "Li". The same thing happens for logout but with any files beginning with "Lo". So, all I have to do is to rename the "login.sh" script something like "Lisendlogon.hook" and it will run at login.

Now, this "lisendlogon.hook" script simply contains the command to run the "sendlogon" program plus the right syntax to put after it. i.e. the server and the current users credentials. This is how it looks:

#!/bin/tcsh

/usr/bin/sendLogon dns.name.of.server.com 3898 $1

The sendLogon is in the /usr/bin folder, as this is where their tutorial says it should be.


After testing this, I need to make an install pkg file to run from the task server. I like using IceBerg.


So, here's some screenshots from it:

Iceberg - fix NHR and sendlogon settings page

postflight installation scripts.

writeloginhook.sh contains:

#!/bin/tcsh

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /etc/login.hook

which tells the operating system to run /etc/login.hook at login. 

iceberg - files section. Later found the default destination needs to be "/"

I got slightly confused as to which folder to make the default destination?

I'll test it out on a computer suite machine to see if it works.

After a little testing, it looks like it didn't put sendLogon into /usr/bin! After trying a few things it turns out it was down to the "Default Destination". After setting this as "/" it worked. It looks like this is basically the folder which all installation folders have in common.

Iceberg - files section with the correct "default destination" as the lowest common folder.

Tested and works fine.

Cheers

Canon LiDE 60 on OS X 10.6.6 and Active Directory probs

So, after installing the scanner (heres the notes) I then thought all would be fine. It turns out that students logging in through active directory would not be able to scan. It would not provide a preview of what was in the scanner, nor would it let you press the scan button.

On looking in the logs I found this entry:
28/03/2012 12:56:47 /System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd[48] removing dropped transaction for -114,_mac_bind/Library/Preferences/CanoScan LiDE 60/~SGCheck.tmp

It appears the program cannot gain the right access privilages to this folder, as it is on a Windows SMB share (I think) through active directory.

On trying to create an alias to this using OS X finder I saw this error:
28/03/2012 13:02:29 kernel smb_maperr32: no direct map for 32 bit server error (0xc0000279)

As I have NHR installed, which redirects certain folders, I thought I'd try and redirect this /Library/Preferences/CanoScan LiDE 60/ folder.

After redirecting it to the local drive, I found it still not working. I found another error:

3/28/12 1:07:52 PM /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/TWAINBridge.app/Contents/MacOS/TWAINBridge[4423] Allocator race detected: transaction is not verified for -114/2 - _mac_bind/Library/Preferences/~SGCheck.tmp
3/28/12 1:07:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd[48] removing dropped transaction for -114,_mac_bind/Library/Preferences/~SGCheck.tmp
3/28/12 1:07:59 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd[48] removing dropped transaction for -114,_mac_bind/Library/Preferences/~SGCheck.tmp
3/28/12 1:07:59 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd[48] removing dropped transaction for -114,_mac_bind/Library/Preferences/~SGRot.tmp

It looks like it needs to write two files to the ~/Library/Preferences folder:
~SGCheck.tmp
~SGRot.tmp

I regigged the LIclean.hook to delete the Preferences folder, create it in the tmp folder on the local drive, and to create a symlink in the users Library folder.

Having done this, it worked like a dream. I would preferably have it so that it just had a symlink to these files it needs, but they are probably deleted as soon as they're not needed any more, and that would be the end of the symlink until the next login.

Anyway, for reference, here are the lines I added to the LIclean.hook file:
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Preferences
mkdir /tmp/$1/Preferences
ln -s /tmp/$1/Preferences/ "$home_loc"/Library/Preferences


Thinking about it I'll also need to sort the LOcleanupclean.hook file. Here's what I need to add:
rm -rf "$home_loc"/Library/Preferences

Thats a good days work.

Illustrator Can't Locate the Startup Proiles

A tutor was having trouble on her machine. Whenever she loaded up illustrator it would come up with this error message:

Can't locate the Startup Profiles. Please try after installing illustrator again.
Illustrator will now attempt to create a default document

I noticed that it also happened on any networked login, but not local logins.

Her machine was a little different then the typical set up. I had enabled "Force Local Home" on the active directory accounts.

After a bit of investigation I eventually ruled it down to NHR. I had just installed it on all machines (see how I fixed NHR) including hers (even though it didn't actually need it). I found that the directories inside - ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe were symbolic links and the "Force Local Home" option didn't work with this very well (I don't know why though).

Anyway, as the NHR thing fixes the problems she was having with her networked home, I've just unticked the "Force Local Home" on Active Directory accounts.

I also had this problem with another machine and to fix it I removed NHR from the com.apple.loginwindow.plist file:

sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

It basically means it doesn't load at login or logout.

Why NHR didn't work! Finally

So, after many, many trials and tribulations I've finally worked out why NHR wasn't working. Simply because I tried to install it over itself. Basically the files were already there. Doh!

So to fix it in all the mac suites I basically have to:

1. Get rid of the NHR files on't computers
1. run the uninstall file
2. run a small script to delete the /etc/hooks and /etc/login.hook and /etc/logout.hook
2. Install the NHR.pkg file again (through task server)

So, as I'm running it all through the task server anyway, I'll try and line up the uninstall and install files sequentially, so that it works in the right order. It should do.

Done 

Getting NHR to work on 10.6 and later

After a lot of grumbles, it turns out that there is a great need here to have NHR working again, specifically to redirect the ~/Library/Caches folders of the Active Directory networked users.

I've stated on many previous occasions when it hasn't worked with:

• Adobe Acrobat OS X Active Directory Crash
• OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory login Illustrator Print.ai is an unknown format
• Can't place images in Illustrator - blank box - OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory
• OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory login Illustrator Print.ai is an unknown format
• Network Home Redirector - reverting back
• Setting up the new 27" iMacs
• iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment - Part 2
• iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment

So I've finally got around to looking into why NHR hasn't been working with OS X 10.6.6.

So I installed it on a nice little MacBook Pro. Doesn't work. First I thought I'd check it installed alright and in Console I saw no errors.

Next I checked permissions and found I couldn't look in the folder /etc/hooks. I also couldn't run the script login.hook without using 'sudo'.

I logged in under root, reset the permissions so that everyone could read and write:

sudo chmod 777 /etc/login.hook

sudo chmod 777 /etc/logout.hook

sudo chmod 777 /etc/hooks

sudo chmod 777 /etc/hooks/*

Still wouldn't work.

When I tried to run the login.hook and Llcleanbasic.hook files it came up with:

LoginHook: Executing /etc/hooks/LIcleanbasic.hook...

Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...

Try `grep --help' for more information.

After looking in the Llcleanbasic.hook file I found the first line of script ran as follows:

Local=`dscl . -list /Users |grep -x $1`

Typing this in the terminal comes up with the same message, which persuades me that it is this which is throwing the whole script off. Basically this part of the script and an if statement below it, finds out if the user is listed in the local users list. It must have changed in the later versions of OS X.

I decided to not have this part of the script run as to me it doesn't matter if local users also have the script running as I'm only going to have it affect the Caches folder. As such, I commented it out as well as the if statement which ran after it. This is what it ended up looking like:

#Local=`dscl . -list /Users |grep -x $1`

#This script will re-direct several the Caches and Fonts folders from a user's network home location to the local machine to help with performance.

#if [[ "$1" == "$Local" ]]; then

#        exit 0

#fi

After doing this it ran perfectly!!!!

A couple of things left to do:

1. Get the logout script to work
2. try is running it with it's original permissions to see if that also helped.

So, I also had to change the logout script accordingly as well, commenting out the Local='dscl......... and the if statement below it. After this it all worked perfectly.

Also, a point to note is that when logged in as anyone other then root, when you add login and logout hooks it is important to understand user hooks, and all user hooks (not the correct terminology but hopefully describes what I want).

So, when logged in NOT as root, if you use the command:

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /private/etc/login.hook 

it'll only give this user the hook. To do it system wide.

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /private/etc/login.hook 

Can't place images in Illustrator - blank box - OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory

I had this problem a few years ago, and it's recently popped up again. The problem is that when Active Directory Users (with home drives on Windows servers) try and place a picture within an Illustrator document, they just get a blank box with an X through it.

The way I found in fixing it previously was to install NHR (previously documented in my blog), which basically replaces the ~/Library/Caches folder with a symlink to a temporary folder on the local hard drive. It then deleted this when the networked user logged out.

The trouble I'm having now is that I can't get NHR to work with OS X 10.6.6. It simply doesn't want to run on login, maybe not even at all. The work around that I'm formulating is to simply make a little shell script which runs at login and does what NHR did.

I've now made a little Automator application which runs the terminal script:


mkdir /Users/Shared/temp
mkdir /Users/Shared/temp/Caches
rm -R ~/Library/Caches
ln -s /Users/Shared/temp/Caches ~/Library/

This has fixed the problem with the users who run the Automator Application, although when they login to a machine which doesn't have this "/Users/Shared/temp/Caches" folder they will encounter problems.

I shall make a new post describing how I made the startup script.

Network Home Redirector - reverting back

Back when we had OS X 10.5 installed throughout the computer suites we had to run a script at startup which created a symlink for Caches in the users Library folder. These scripts were called NHR (Network Home Redirector) This linked to a folder stored locally, as the caches folder stored on the Active Directory smb shares had permissions issues for some applications.

The only thing which didn't work quite as planned was the fact that the logout scripts never ran, and so people were left with the symlink in their Library folder.

Now we have updated to OS X 10.6.6, this permissions issue seems to have resolved itself. But anyone who logged in last year has now got a symlink for their Caches folder, and not a folder! To resolve it I plan to make a small script which, upon login, looks for a symlink, deletes it and makes a nice new folder.

I've had a look at the man page for 'ls' function, and if you use the -l command in it, it shows you more info on the files and folders. Any with a 'l' at the beginning of the line are symbolic links. I ran the command with the grep command to pick out the Caches folder:

ls -l Library/ | grep 'Caches'

lrwxrwxrwx+ 1 leachs  CHSTFADMIN\teaching_global     19 15 Sep 14:00 Caches -> /tmp/leachs/Caches/

So thats a good start.

OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory login Dreamweaver doesn't load

On trying to load Dreamweaver up on an Active Directory account running OS X 10.6.6 Dreamweaver trys to load but stops almost straight away with no error! It still runs but doesn't even load a splash screen. When logging in on a local account Dreamweaver works a charm.

A quick search drew up a few posts, heres an example. Most point to permissions issues on the "Configuration" folder in /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver CS5. This was mainly caused by FileVault which is obviously more common then people using Active Directory logins. The only solution of which is to switch FileVault off! Of course we can't just switch off Active Directory logins though!

I do have NHR installed, and with the Caches folder being relocated to the local drive I know it is not this. I figured it might be another folder dreamweaver tries to use. Here are the other files:

• /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver\ CS5
• /Library/Preferences/Adobe\ Dreamweaver\ CS5\ Prefs

there's also a plist file in the Preferences folder but I deleted it and it has not been recreated. Something like

com.adobe.dreamweaver

I've also been having a few issues with the Application Support folder, which occasionally doesn't let me write files or folders to it, which causes problems like these. I originally thought it was this which caused the problem, but since rebooting I can now access the App support folder and dreamweaver still doesn't work.

Just playing around with NHR. I've adapted the script so that it creates a symlink for /Application Support/Adobe rather then some of the folders inside. Should be simpler. Didn't solve the problem though.

An error does keep appearing which is related to the file used in /Library/Preferences. Called:

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Prefs

Whenever I load Dreamweaver up (or try to) this appears in Console

27/07/2011 14:04:59 Finder[2463] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.

I've tried to create an alias of this file on the local hard drive which doesn't seem to make any difference. My only guess is this always comes up.

I shall endevour to locate any other files Dreamweaver may use. Upon loading dreamweaver on a local login I found a lot more files in the Configuration folder in Application Support. I also found that the "Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Prefs" file had more text in, so I copied these over to the networked account to see if it would change anything. Nope.

If anyone has any other information I would be glad to here it. I'm going to have to revert to a local account to use Dreamweaver until then!!

Well, what do you know. I updated from Dreamweaver version 11.0.0 to 11.0.3.4964 using AdobeDreamweaver-11.0-All-Update.dmg. Seems to work nicely now, I see a splash screen and next it tells me Adobe Extension Manager needs to load to finish the update.

Of course now this "Extension Manager" has the same problem DreamWeaver had. It just pops up and sits there not doing anything. But it does let Dreamweaver finish loading and lets me use Dreamweaver. The only real downside is that I get this message every time I load dreamweaver.

I'll try loading this up using a local account, maybe it updates files on the Hard Drive, or maybe it updates files on the Users Home Drive?

Setting up the new 27" iMacs

Setup started with the simple "hold down the n button" to netboot/netinstall. The first problem was that the current netinstall image would not work on the new iMacs, doh! So I set about making a new one. The old deploy studio RC20 seems to crash whilst making an image, so I needed to use a newer one. This newer one imaged without crashing, but when netbooting came up with a message saying the server needed updating to cope with the new netboot image.

The next thing I tried was to put an iMac in target disk mode and just reimage it using a 24" imac with I know works. I put the Mac Pro 10.6.6 image on it but would not boot up. This was probably due to new drivers not being on the image!

My last attempt is to start from scratch (or nearly from scratch) and install everything. I updated the operating system to the latest 10.6.8. I took a shortcut though and used "Migration Assistant" to pull across applications from the 10.6.6 image. This worked and only required me to install the newest of things. Heres a list of things which is now on the new iMac:

• Adobe CS5
• Final Cut Studio
• Firefox 4
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Papercut client
• Celtx
• Office 2008 (required rosetta)
• Handbrake

And drivers

• Scanwizard
• Dell 3110 driver
• Pixma Driver
• Konica Driver
• HP Scanner 4370
• Wacom tablet
• Flip4Mac

After all this I tried a students account. It required 2 login attempts to get me in though. I then tried all the apps. The problems I encountered were:

• Photoshop crash on launch
• Illustrator crash on launch
• Indesign crash on launch
• Acrobat crash on launch

These were probably due to NHR (network home relocation) script not installed. I installed it and Photoshop and Acrobat started working. Unfortunately Illustrator nor InDesign would work! They worked perfectly fine on a local login. I ran the CS5 install again, and also updated Illustrator to 15.0.2 and InDesign to 7.0.4. Illustrator would crash on load up, and indesign would crash on the "new document" screen which comes up first. My only clue was a message which popped up in console which I can't quite remember now. Something to do with transport2app error 255.

Just relogged in and tried it again. The error's I'm getting from the console are:

07/07/2011 14:01:43 kernel smbfs_vnop_link: warning: pid 665(Adobe Illustrato) hardlink(~v3vZO_cBdNvr4jqB)

07/07/2011 14:01:49 mdworker32[673] kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

07/07/2011 14:01:51 mdworker[658] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.

The first refers to the smbfs (samba file system) which must be the home drive of the student which is hosted on a windows share.

The only real difference is that the operating system in 10.6.8 instead of 10.6.6. I think I will have to redo this on a 10.6.6 machine....

So, redone a 10.6.6 version and migrated everything from 10.6.8 iMac. Everything worked! (apart from Adobe Acrobat and Dreamweaver. Acrobat crashes and dreamweaver gets stuck even loading up. I installed NHR and still the same. Interestingly Illustrator worked without NHR!

Looking into the issue a little more, I found that NHR is not entirely working. I've noticed that the caches folder is not being relocated, although the fonts folder is? I will have to look into this further. At the time I thought this was due to the test account having the links set up already from another machine, but thinking about it now these links should be deleted on logout! So now I'm thinking about it, it was originally working and now somehow it is not working any longer.

iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment - Part 2

After NetInstalling OS X 10.5.8 on the new iMac I got a black screen. I still think it was worth a try.

So, I swapped the "fully updated" one for another new iMac so I could start at OS X 10.6.4. Tried Active Directory and it worked fine, as well as NHR login scripts. So I jumped to the conclusion that it was in the use of "Migration Assistant" that some 'damage' occurred. But, I was still cautious of updating the operating system any further. My plan is/was to update everything else, image it, then update the operating system to see if everything still works and carry on accordingly.

So, I had to start from scratch and installed:

• Final Cut Studio 2 - had to install at least 3 times to get 'all' the files
• Aperture
• Adobe CS5
• Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 - no serial number
• CeltX
• Audacity
• iWork 09
• Burn
• ClickView
• DivX
• Firefox 3.6.13
• Handbrake
• Office 2008
• Mplayer Ex...
• DeployStudio RC20
• NHRBasic
• Flip4Mac
• ARD Client 3.4
• PCclient
• Don't have "Logic" Disks on server
• VLC 1.1.7

Scanners:

• HP Scanjet 4370
• Nikon CoolScan 8000
• Scanwizard Pro 7.20

Printers:

• 5550
• 3110
• Canon Pixma IP4500
• Konica 7300

Tablets:

• PenTablet 521-3 - I think this covers all the tablets we have.

Forgot also to add "Media" user to the local users.

I partitioned the HD via Boot Camp Assistant and formatted it as HFS+ Journaled, named "Scratch Disk". Just going to make the first image now.....

.... and now just updated to 10.6.6, and student login worked just fine! So to conclude, "Migration Assistant" probably isn't good for transferring apps across operating system versions.

I am now imaging using Deploy Studio, but having to clear a bit of space on the server so it can fit on. The space taken on the iMac is 85GB, it needed more then 130GB (not sure how much more) for doing server side compression, I've now freed up 200GB on the server. 78 mins till it's uploaded, but then it'll take the old server, bless the poor thing, quite a while to compress the image.

... I left it over night and it did it. A nice thing to note is that if you use a local repository, I think it doesn't use the server to compress the image.

Worked a charm, and even worked with multicasting, yay.

iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment

Just received 10 new 21.5" iMacs, version "11, 2" ,  with 10.6.6 installed. Very nice, with quad core and 1GB Hard Drives, but having a few different issues has caused me to put them back to 10.5.8 temporarily until the main issues are fixed.

To streamline the operation I decided rather then starting from scratch, I would use Migration Assistant to transfer accounts and applications from the latest MacBook Pro which had everything on. This worked very well, but in heinsight might have caused the issues below. These problems need testing on a fresh install of OS X 10.6.6.

Issues which I encountered:

• Students on Active Directory require to put details in more then once before they can login, for machines only just switched on!! I think this is to do with how quick the mac boots up, too quick to authenticate itself on active directory?
• NHR (Network Home Redirector) scripts not running at login or logout.
• Deploy Studio netboot not working; firstly freezing on the white screen with the grey apple (no spinning wheel, and secondly crashing and rebooting when loading the next screen after the one just mentioned.

With the students active directory issue (not properly tested on staff accounts), there was not much to try as I think it is more of a problem with Active Directory Servers or how OS X 10.6.6 communicates with them, which is too time consuming at present (there is pressure to deploy iMacs within the next 2 days at most). I did some simply exploratory fixes:

1. take off of active directory and put it back on
2. make sure everything was up-to-date
3. refer back to solution 1.

When there is more time I shall need to look into this, but also future releases of the operating system will fix these. One thing I would like to do is try active directory logins on a fresh install of the operating system

With NHR I downloaded the latest, 3.2.6, uninstalled and reinstalled. What might have caused the problems is that I transferred files from a MacBook Pro running 10.5.8, which might have transferred some of NHR Scripts but not all. I also tried the full version which creates more alias's. Unfortunately not much info on NHR website, no-one else seems to be having problems. One thing I would like to do is try the scripts on a fresh copy of 10.6.6.

After these two problems and diminishing time I decided it was best to revert to 10.5.8 until time would allow these problems to be resolved. But, I did not want my efforts to go to waste, so I decided to make a disk image of the machine with its' problems so I can continue later. Little was I to suspect any more issues. I held down 'N' for netboot to DeployStudio and the machine froze on the white screen with the grey apple (no spinning wheel). Doh! The problem was probably because the last deploy studio netboot image was made on a MacBook Pro 15" now 2 years old.

I subsequently made a new netboot image (nbi) from this iMac and tried again, this time to get the spinning wheel but to crash on trying to load the next screen! This was probably due to outdated DeployStudio (currently using RC14 on the server and RC 15 on clients). I updated the client to the latest and the same happened again! So I updated the server, but alas, the installer said the minimum requirements were not met!! Server is running 10.4.11!!! Needs updating!!! So I go traipsing around for the last version to support 10.4.11 server, which was a lot of hassle. I'd like to not that the DeployStudio website (both Wiki and main site) are not good for troubleshooting, with only the latest versions available. I finally found RC20 here. Eventually worked! Yay.

After this I went to make an image of the drive but alas, not enough room on the server. So I used Boot Camp Assistant in OS X 10.6.6, and partitioned the drive - 160GB for OS X and the rest for "Scratch Disk". I then NetBooted again and used Disk Utility to make a compressed Disk Image and put it on the Scratch. Turned out to be 79GB, original was 106GB.

So now to put OS X 10.5.8 on, which will hopefully work on this machine!!

Adobe Acrobat OS X Active Directory Crash

So after fixing Adobe Acrobat admin password problem acrobat 8 loads up, but crashes after 20 seconds. I remember fixing this exact problem with Marketings' computer, Louise Webster I think.

Doh! I didn't write the solution in the blog!!! Lesson learned over and over again. So here's the brief explination I told Paul Jenkins by email:

Hi Paul,

I went over at 12 today to have a look. It appears to have problems on any active directory accounts which aren’t administrators. Its a permissions issue because acrobat (and lots of other programs) write temp files to the users home drive with the wrong permissions. The NHR program was installed but only redirects caches and fonts folders to the local drive, but still didn’t fix the acrobat problems. I found another folder which needed re-directing - “~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/”

I made a folder in “/Users/Shared/Websterl/” and created an alias in her “/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/” so it gets re-directed to the local drive. It only works on this machine for only her at the moment. If any more people have the same problem it would be worth adding an entry in the NHR program for acrobat.

I also noticed the programs and operating system weren’t up-to-date. I’ve set it updating adobe products. Louise said she’d get back in contact if she had any more problems. I didn’t get around to updating the operating system though.

Cheers

Stephen

I had a look at this folder and came up straight away with error! I remember not it was a folder within this folder:  /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Acrobat/9.0_x86. So after redirecting this one it works. So to fix this problem for everyone, NHR program will need to do this as well! I'll find out how to do that tomorrow!

Unfortunately, NHR the full program redirects too many folders, i.e. Microsoft User Data, so I'll have to adapt the loginhook, logouthook, clean script files etc. But then I can copy them to all machines and it should be fine.