[K12OSN] Authenticate to OS X Open Directory SOLVED

[Christopher Butler]

"Support list for opensource software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com> on
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 11:28 PM -0500 wrote:
>Can you mac users get a gnome session running in a window? If so, how?
>
First, let me make clear our setup.  We have a 2-NIC LTSP Server and our
thin LTSP clients live in their own LAN (192.168.0.0/24).  The other NIC
on the LTSP Server lives in our main LAN (172.16.4.0/24).  The thin LTSP
clients can now accept logins with usernames/passwords from our OS X Open
Directory server (which lives in the 172 VLAN).  I am using NFS to mount
their home directories on the LTSP Server.  Seems to work just fine - I
login with my username and password on a think LTSP client and I get my OS
X desktop and folders.

Additionally, users on Macs in the 172 VLAN can start an X session on the
LTSP Server.  We have X11 installed on all our Mac workstations, so a
logged in Mac user can just pop open X11, type
x -query 172.16.4.253 :1
and get the LTSP login screen.  They do have to re-enter their username &
password on the LTSP login screen, but that's a minor difficulty.  The X
session does take over the whole screen, so they can't easily see their OS
X desktop.  But, the dock remains so that they can open Finder windows,
run OS X applications and all that jazz.

Your question leads me to 2 other questions
1 - is there a way to hide or minimize the X session to get back to the OS
X destop?
2 - is there a way to set things up so that when I start an X session from
a logged in Mac, it auto logs me in with my username/password.  Something
kerberos-like (i.e., the LTSP server recognizes who I am when I start the
session and bypasses the login screen)?

Thanks,
Christopher Butler
Director of Technology
Shore Country Day School
Beverly, MA 01915
cbutler at shoreschool.org