Leopard Home Sync - Syncs ALL files every login and logout

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Leopard Home Sync - Syncs ALL files every login and logout

Hey All,

I work for a school district and we're in the process of slowly moving all of our clients over to 10.5. For the most part, everything works great. There's only one major problem with one component...home folder syncronization.

We have all our teacher's configured so that their Documents folder and Firefox profile (to back up bookmarks) is automatically synced to their home folder on the respective school's file server (A Win2k3 file server). This has worked without much trouble under Tiger. Unfortunately, it's not working so well under Leopard. The problem is that when a teacher logs in or logs out, the home sync process syncs every single file each and every time. This is a HUGE problem especially when it comes to teachers who have a gig plus in their documents folder and they're connected to the network via wireless.

I'm using Workgroup Manager to apply the settings for synchronization (so that ONLY the Documents folder and Firefox profile syncs). Network accounts are provided via Active Directory, and all management preferences are provided via a 10.4.11 OS X server.

Although home syncronization wasn't exactly perfect under Tiger, it seemed to keep track of files relatively well and only sync what changed since the last sync. In this case, Leopard wants to sync all files regardless if any changes occurred or not.

What changed in Leopard to cause this issue? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!!

Message was edited by: Anthony J

Mixture of 10.4 and 10.5 Macs

Posted on Jan 14, 2009 12:51 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 15, 2009 2:34 AM in response to Anthony J

Im not an expert in Leopard server, but you can try to add catalogs like library, movies, etc to "skip items" part of the Login&logout sync ... How is your background sync is setup? I suspect that login&logout also syncs with background parametres. If that is the case there are 2 keys you can add to fix that background syns preferences interferences the login&logout sync preferences ...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1390718&tstart=15

check posts from feb 26 and oct 13 primarily ..

i hope it gives you some ideas ...

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Answer 2

pkar

Level 1

10 points

Jan 15, 2009 4:27 AM in response to Anthony J

I don't have an answer for this as I'm having same problems, although they've appeared only after upgrading to 10.5.6

Out of curiosity; which Leopard version are you using?

Pawel

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Answer 3

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 8:23 AM in response to volkan_bagci

The configuration itself works. I've set in WGM for the sync process to only sync ~/Documents and ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox and this aspect functions just fine. There is anything I don't want to sync syncing.

The only problem is that when logging in and out, all files in these folders sync regardless if anything changed or not. So, the "1GB of data" a user may have in their Documents folder goes through a full sync at each login and logout (even if all they do is log in, turn around, and immediately log out). I hope this makes sense!

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Answer 4

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 8:27 AM in response to pkar

All clients are running 10.5.6.

Hmm...from your experience it's only happening under 10.5.6...bummer.

Just out of curiocity, where are your user's portable home directories being stored? Are they being stored on a Mac or Windows (or other) file server?

Message was edited by: Anthony J

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Answer 5

Jan 15, 2009 8:52 AM in response to Anthony J

We saw the same issue after updating our PHD clients to 10.5.6. The server that we are syncing to is 10.4.11. After we updated to 10.5.6 on the client side, the PHD sync would sync all files, every login/logout.

After searching everywhere for an answer and trying many different theories, I think we have found the issue. It seems to be that the home directories from the 10.4.11 server being shared by NFS rather than AFP is the problem. We have changed some of the home folders for a few of our 10.5.6 PHD clients from NFS to AFP and it has resolved the issue and the home directories are syncing as normal.

Now, I don't know if it's just the combination of 10.4.11 server and 10.5.6 client, but it was definitely the 10.5.6 client update that introduced the issue. We have not yet tested a 10.5.6 client on a non-AFP home folder with a 10.5 server. We are now moving each PHD user to an AFP home, one by one, and monitoring each one for any issues.

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Answer 6

foilpan

Level 4

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Jan 15, 2009 8:57 AM in response to Anthony J

you should be able to define the sync behavior and exclusions with greater granularity on 10.5 server. it may be possible to configure the sync exclusions another way and add the plist as a managed pref on the 10.4 server for those 10.5.6 clients, though i'm not sure.

basically, what you're looking for is possible with 10.5 server, but i have no experience doing the same with 10.4.

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Answer 7

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 9:01 AM in response to XplodingBoy

Hmm...we're running sort-of a hybrid setup here, and all of our users's home directories are stored on Windows file servers (they've got the most storage capacity). If what you've found is true, this is not good!

So if the fix is to move to folders that are shared via AFP...hmm...

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Answer 8

pkar

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10 points

Jan 15, 2009 10:40 AM in response to Anthony J

Anthony,

I have Linux server, Mac machines are configured to authenticate against openldap, PHDs are stored on NFS shares.

All worked fine with 10.4 and up to 10.5.5 clients.
H**l broke up after the 10.5.6 upgrade... few remaining 10.5.5 machines are still working just fine.

Pawel

Message was edited by: pkar

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Answer 9

Jan 15, 2009 11:19 AM in response to Anthony J

Hi

I've seen this problem before and sometimes accompanied with the occasional kernel panic. You could ask the DC Admin to install SFM (Services for Macintosh)? However it might suffice if you disable SMB Digital Signing (if Server & Client agrees) on the AD itself. Depending at what level the Policies are set you should only have to change it the once.

As you know SMB Digital Signing is not supported on the mac. In most Windows environments it's 'Not Defined', however sometimes it is 'Enabled'. If in your environment it is 'Not Defined' it must be 'Disabled'. You should also disable these requirements client side as well. Unbind first. Launch terminal and issue:

sudo dsconfigad -packetsign disable -packetencrypt disable

Supply the password when prompted. It should report "Settings changed Successfully".

Rebind to AD afterwards.

However if the Windows environment requires it to be on (its to stop man in the middle attacks) then you will need to install SFM. The Folder used for home folder creation/syncing should still be served via SMB but can have File Sharing for Macintosh assigned to it. Make sure users have read/write access.

Tony

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Answer 10

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 1:00 PM in response to Antonio Rocco

We really don't want to go the Services for Macintosh route if at all possible. I checked the SMB digital signing options...

"Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)" and
"Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (if client agrees)"

were both set to Disabled. However...the same options for "Microsoft network client" were not defined. I set these to disabled as well.

I don't have a test machine in front of me, but I'm going to try unbinding a user's computer, running that command, and rebinding and see how the portable home directory syncing goes.

I feel this is a little out there, but it's worth a shot!

I hope this won't screw up any of our Windows clients! lol

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Answer 11

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 1:45 PM in response to Antonio Rocco

No luck...I think I'm just gonna have to do the inevitable and roll back to 10.5.5.

sigh

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Answer 12

Anthony J Author

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Jan 15, 2009 3:10 PM in response to pkar

Doing an Archive and Install, installing the 10.5.5 Combo update, ignoring the 10.5.6 update, and installing all other updates did the trick.

Time to fix my image...

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Answer 13

pkar

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Jan 21, 2009 4:02 AM in response to Anthony J

I have a very busy environment and many of the laptops are being taken out from the office for the night, so I couldn't do the rollback easily.

I've done however different thing; replaced
/System/Library/CoreServices/File Sync.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/FileSyncAgent.app
with content taken from 10.5.5, then rebooted and sync works fine now 🙂

I've tested it already on three computers and all looks fine.

I know, it's a dirty trick, but it works and I don't need to do the rollback.

Pawel

Message was edited by: pkar

Message was edited by: pkar

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Answer 14

dnh

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Jan 21, 2009 2:43 PM in response to pkar

I am having exactly the same problem - in fact the sync never finishes because it runs for so long!

Any idea how I can get hold of these files? I only have 10.5.6 installed on 1 MacBook and a 10.5.5 installation DVD; but I cannot find the files on the disc?

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Answer 15

pkar

Level 1

10 points

Jan 21, 2009 10:21 PM in response to dnh

I've took the files from a machine still running 10.5.5

I've never needed to extract files from the installation DVD, but it looks like it's possible, have a look at http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=454796&seqNum=6, for example.

Pawel

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