Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Reset user permission on a Lion Server for Network Users

Hi, I have just installed a Lion Server at home based on a Mac Mini. It was a bit tedious but I got it all working.


I moved all my users data to an external disk on the Mac Mini. I have two iMacs and two MacBooks who now are successfully bound to the Open Directory and I can log in at all of them with my four network accounts and get the home directories mounted from the server.


The problem I have is that I sometimes get some strange acting applications, eg iPhoto is telling me it can't open the library file as it's locked by another user. I think these are based on some user permission errors that occured when I moved my users to the server using "cp" command.


I have found several websites that explain how to repair permissions. You can use disk utility but that only works if users directory is on the boot disk which is not the case. You can use Lion's passwordreset utility but that only seems to work for local users and not for "Network Users"!


So the only manual way to do it is of course the "chown - R <USER>:staff" and then doing a "chmod -R 755 <USER>". That seems to be taken care of most of the issues but not quiet all of them and I am not sure if those are the right permission for every directory?


Does anybody know a better way to repair permission on a Lion Server using Network Accounts with user directories on an external disk?


Many thanks!

Posted on Sep 27, 2011 10:03 PM

Reply
3 replies

Jan 3, 2012 2:18 AM in response to humancomputing

Ok found a sollution, i tried a couple of things, it boils down to this.

login as admin user

1. demote the network user to a local user,

use workgroup manager for it use export in menu to export user from LDAP

import to Local directory, reset the password and delete the LDAP user.

2. you chould now be able to localy login to the account, do that.

3. open the terminal and run the following commands (probably need sudo for it and you need to change <username> to the user you want to change)

chmod -R -N /Users/<username>/

chown -R <username>:staff /Users/<username>

chmod -R 700 /Users/<username>

4. check that every thing in you're account is working again as should.

5. promote local user to network user.

use workgroup manager for it use export in menu to export user from Local

import to LDAP directory, reset the password and delete the Local user.


this did the trick for me, hope it helps.


Ben

Reset user permission on a Lion Server for Network Users

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.