Q: Mac osx server 4.0 clients not logging on.

First, you need to know about this potential problem:

OS X Server: Don't log in to the server with a network user's account - Apple Support

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You need to be able to lookup, both forward and reverse IP Address <--> Fully qualified three.part.name from each workstation. do not use .local or .private

You can use Network Utility.app  lookup pane to do this. If you do not see it, you can find it in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications

Once it is running Option-click on it in the Dock and choose Options > Keep in Dock.

Each network does this differently, but many Server Admins insist that you will need the DNS built into Mac OS X Server, and you will need to point each and every Workstation to it as the first DNServer.

In addition, you must have System Preferences > User & Groups > Login Options > Nework Account Server ... which must have a green light.

I finally succeeded in binding an iMac running Yosemite 10.10.5 to an Xserve running 10.10.5 Server. Now, I can authenticate the client computer against network users hosted in the Open Directory Master on the Xserve. However, most of the time, the login-process jumps right back to the login window. It does not give me any chance at user input, if the logged-in session appears, though briefly.

Is this a nut worth attempting to crack?

Now, I can authenticate the client computer against network users hosted in the Open Directory Master on the Xserve

¿How do you know you successfully authenticated?

If you did, you have made great progress through the "dark, undebuggable" (due to no error messages that can be chased down) phase of Server setup.

Next use console.app to look at what is happening on the Workstation, and also the Server so you can get the Server version of what happened.

allow things to get quiet or add a Marker to the system log with console.app; note the exact time; then initiate a login sequence; then look at the system console for what happened; then check the Server logs for its view of the transaction.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

 

Now, I can authenticate the client computer against network users hosted in the Open Directory Master on the Xserve

¿How do you know you successfully authenticated?

Good question! I was able to log in on my client Mac with the credentials from the network user in Open Directory on my Xserve.

However, I was not out of the woods! On subsequent login-attempts, I never saw the desktop of the login session. Instead, it kicked me back to the login window, where I saw the two iMac’s local users and now the name of the network user with an orange checkmark next to it. Something is obviously still screwed up.

For now, I gave up and set my son up as a local user on the iMac. I spent a lot of hours in the middle of the night troubleshooting this.