Apple Mac OS X Server (Administrator’s Guide) - Manual (Page 156)

156 Chapter 3
Distributing Home Directories Across Multiple Servers
The following illustration depicts using one Mac OS X Server for storing user accounts and
two other Mac OS X Servers for storing AFP home directories.
When a user logs in, he or she is authenticated using an account stored on the accounts
server. The location of the user’s home directory, stored in his account, is used to mount his
or her home directory, which resides physically on one of the home directory servers.
Here are the steps you could use to set up this scenario for AFP home directories:
1 Set up the directory services of the client computers so their search policy includes the
server where the user accounts are stored. See Chapter 2, “Directory Services,” for
instructions.
2 On each home directory server, create the folder that will serve as the share point for the
home directories. Set up automounting for each share point. Doing so ensures that a user
can automatically see his home directory after logging in because it is mounted on his
computer. See “Setting Up AFP Home Directory Share Points” on page 160 for more
information about setting up AFP share points for home directories.
When you set up automounting, Mac OS X Server creates a mount record for the share point
in the directory domain you designate. The mount record that describes home directory
share points can reside in the same directory domain as the user account or in a directory
domain in the search path used to find related user records.
3 Set up the user accounts on the account server so that the home directory share point is one
of the two you created in step 1. See “Defining a Network Home Directory” on page 163.
Because the home directories are accessed using AFP, the first time a user logs in his or her
home directory is created automatically on the appropriate server and is visible on the user’s
computer.
Mac OS X Servers
User accounts
Home directories A thru M Home directories N thru Z