Extremely Slow Login

dose it matter witch computer the account is logged into? ie: bob logs into computer 1, his log in is fast. Bob logs into computer 2, his log in takes 10 minutes.

if the computer being used dose matter. I would try to isolate the issue to network or computer. Maybe hook computer 2 up to ethernet cable that was being used by computer 1. And see if it makes a difference, if it dose, well then some thing wrong with that ethernet connection. if it doesn't. then you know it's an issue with that computer.

If the computer being used dose not matter. ie bob logs into computer 1 his log in takes 10 minutes. Bobe try to log into computer 2, his log in takes 10 minutes. Lisa logs into computer 1 o 2 and she logs in instantly. Then you know it's some thing related to that account.

If the issue varies. some times it's bobs log in, or some times it's lisa, then I would check out the demand placed on the server / network. I bet if this is the case, then it's probable only happens with peek network / server use.

It's probably worth swapping in a new switch as a test (assuming you have one handy that you can swap in for a few minutes). I've had exactly the problems you describe due to failing switches.

Some other things to try:
- boot in verbose mode... maybe you'll get some info from the messages.
- check the system/console logs for logging from the boot process.

Chris,

If you are still monitoring this thread, I am having a similar problem, but I found out something interesting that might help.

A couple of weeks ago when I was setting up my test laptop I was having problems getting it to work correctly with Mobile and Managed accounts. One thing that I noticed reading through Apple's documentation is that Computer Account Records are important when setting up these types of accounts. So I added a Computer Account for the laptop to the LDAP domain using WGM and the accounts started working. On my network I can move in and out the various accounts very quickly on that machine.

However, when I am outside my network the account access is very slow. I have read a couple of posts today pinpointing issues with DNS resolution and/or access to the LDAP server from outside of the network as the probable cause. Since your issue seems to be occurring when you are inside the network, you should double check your DNS settings. A couple of posts have suggested removing the Search Domains and try changing your DNS server to either the internal DNS server ONLY or your router ONLY. (There seems to be a bug in 10.6 where the client is trying the secondary server first, so narrow your DNS down to a single entry for the time being while you test).

One other thing that I found that I am going to test out - the Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.6 guide has a very interesting note about the Computer Account record:
"Computer accounts are uniquely identified by their Ethernet ID."

Hmmm...this is interesting because when I made my Computer Account record I went into the Inspector in WGM and checked the ENetAddress entry and saw that it only included my actual Ethernet connection. This did not seem logical, especially for a laptop: what if the user is using WiFi to connect? So I manually added a second value for the Ethernet ID of the Airport card. After reading the book I am starting to wonder if the problem might not be related to having two values for the ENetAddress. I'll test that theory out and post back later.

In the meantime see if you have Computer Accounts created for the machines that are logging in quickly. Maybe that is the difference between the machines. Regardless, you should probably create Computer Accounts for all of your machines.

-John

Did the reinstall solve the problem?

before blowing away the server and reinstalling, did you check the dns angle? a lot of open directory/login issues can be resolved by fixing dns/kerberos. keep that in mind before doing another reinstall, and be sure to post log excerpts from clients and server when you're having problems.

We have been having this problem on an increasing basis for the last week or so. It was even starting to mess with our newest machines and inhibiting mobile sync.

The problem appears to have gone away after we installed the Bonjour Update 2010-001. Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding the specifications for the update to check my theory. It says that it's for iTunes and AppleTV, but it's really odd that it seems to have cleaned up the problem.

Given that we have a significant amount of legacy client hardware (eMacs) on our network, I'm wondering if their hardwired AppleTalk demands were essentially DoS attacking the server, which being on 10.6.2, didn't know what to do with AppleTalk.

Well, we were wrong. The Bonjour Update didn't actually fix it. Something else must have happened at about the same time that temporarily relieved the problem.

It's back with a vengeance.

We have the same problem. It is ONLY with Snow Leopard clients. Leopard, Tiger and Panther clients log in fine. A temporary fix for the slow login on the SL clients is to remove the OD server on the SL client and then restart the SL client. Log back into the SL client using the admin account and then rejoin the SL client back to the OD server and then Log Out. The SL client will now quickly log users into the WGM system for a yet undetermined time and then the slow logins will return. This temp fix is annoying the #$@% out of us so we hope we or someone resolves this issue soon.