[K12OSN] Apple Xserve as /home ?

[Eric Harrison]

Shawn Powers wrote:
> I'm having significant problems with netatalk in my network -- I'm not
> sure if it's because I'm sharing /home directories that are mounted via
> nfs, or what -- but the .AppleDB folders get corrupt every time a user
> logs out.  (Note, this problem was mentioned on this list before, and I
> haven't found a solution yet, even reinstalling on a second server...
> ugh.)  Right now, I have a cron job that deletes the .AppleDB folder in
> everyone's home directory every 3 minutes.  What a kludge -- AND it
> causes instability for users currently logged in (but not as much as I
> though it would...)
>
> Anyway, if I buy an actual Apple server, can it export /home for my
> linux boxes?  (And my Microsoft boxes?)  I still need good support for
> OS9 clients, so I can't just use samba.
>
> Anyone using an xserve as your /home directory server?  Advice one way
> or another?
>
> Thanks,
> -Shawn


What version of netatalk are you using?

I've been having good luck with version 2.0. We have had it in
production all this school year and I have not had a single .AppleDB
problem.

With 2.0, you can use the "dbd" scheme for the .AppleDB files. This
fires up a daemon that does all of the reading/writing to the .AppleDB
file. To make this active, you have to edit your AppleVolumes.default
config fine and append "cnidscheme:dbd" to each share. Such as:

    ~ cnidscheme:dbd


To upgrade from 1.5 or 1.6 to 2.0, there is a lengthly process for
modifying the existing .AppleDB files. If found it much easier just to
nuke the old .AppleDBs ;-)

I have RH9 & FC2/3 packages here:

    ftp://k12linux.mesd.k12.or.us/pub/netatalk/


-Eric
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