Rahulmat

Q: Mac Server Integration

We're currently using Exchange 2008 and recently bought a Mac mini and setup the server on it. Please be warned, I am a newbie to this.

 

My question is in 3 parts

 

  1. How can I find out what the address for Active Directory is because everything I try, including the IP address just doesn't allow me to bind to the active directory or access the directory, even on a client machine
  2. Can you suggest any good online videos to help setup the server to seamlessly work with the user accounts that have been created
  3. Is there a way to auto register users on the server without using their machines and enrolling them. India doesn't have the auto enrol programme so I'm kinda stuck there.

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 30, 2016 6:30 AM

Close

Q: Mac Server Integration

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by John Lockwood,Helpful

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jul 2, 2016 1:51 AM in response to Rahulmat
    Level 6 (9,240 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 2, 2016 1:51 AM in response to Rahulmat

    Exchange 2007 (there was no Exchange 2008, there was Exchange 2007 running on Windows Server 2008) is ancient and as far as I am aware no longer supported by Microsoft, it is also likely to have compatibility issues with the latest Mac clients i.e. Apple Mail in El Capitan and Outlook 2016 for Mac. I strongly recommend giving your IT department a good kicking to get them to upgrade to at least Exchange 2010 and preferably Exchange 2013 or 2016.

     

    Your IT department should also be able to tell you what the address of your Active Directory server is, this should be a fully qualified domain name address and not an IP address.

     

    If by register/enrolling machines you mean taking a brand new machine and having it setup for a user then there are two main approaches.

     

    1. DEP aka. Device Enrolment Program, from what you say this may not be available in India. If it was this would involve pre-registering the computer via DEP which would then trigger an automatic device enrolment to an MDM aka. Mobile Device Management server, for example Apple's own Profile Manager or JAMF Casper Suite. The MDM server would then push settings to the Mac including connecting the Mac to Active Directory and/or Open Directory.
    2. A NetBoot/NetRestore system, this could be Apple's own NetBoot service, or DeployStudio or JAMF Casper Suite. With this you boot a brand new Mac on the same network as your NetBoot server and tell it to 'restore' an image from the server. I use DeployStudio myself and after it has restored/installed the operating system it can do various additional setup steps such as connecting again to Active Directory and/or Open Directory, installing programs, and even enrolling again to an MDM server.

     

    Note: With both DeployStudio and JAMF Casper Suite it is possible to have replica servers at branch/remote offices synchronised to the master server.