Managed preferences: user prefs work; computer prefs don't

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Level 1

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Managed preferences: user prefs work; computer prefs don't

I hit something of a brick wall here. This is a school network, with clients ranging from Leopard (PPC) to Lion. Server is Snow Leopard. Accounts and file Sharing work fine. And I can even set managed preferences for users and groups and they appear with no problems.

But setting managed preferences for computers, that's a whole nother story. I haven't had any problems adding computers with their Ethernet addresses, creating groups, and adding computers to the groups. Yes, clients are connected to the account server. But no matter what I do, the Computer managed

Preferences won't show. I've tried rebooting clients, rebooting the server, deleting and readding computers, no dice. This is pretty important because different computers have different apps, so I need to be able to manage their Docks.

Thanks for any insights!

Xserve, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 22, 2012 4:10 PM

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Answer 1

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gracoat

Level 3

673 points

Jun 22, 2012 4:55 PM in response to nscreated

The only thing you haven't mentioned yet is whether or not your client computers are bound to the server.

You do so in the directory utility app. Simply adding the open directory server to the client just allows your users to log in. Binding the client computers to server will allow you to apply mcx prefs to the computer.

Binding also will add the computer record automatically so you'll probably have to delete any computer records that you've added manually to prevent conflicts.

HTH.

-Graham

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Answer 2

nscreated Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 22, 2012 5:22 PM in response to gracoat

For some reason when I bound my clients to the server, they weren't automatically added to the list.

However, I DID discover that, when adding computers to the computer groups, the ellipsis button (...) allows me to select from currently online bound computers. That's when I noticed my real problem: I wrongly assumed that, for wifi connected clients, I was supposed to supply the wifi hardware address. WRONG. Even if the client is connected via wifi, supplying the Ethernet address is what does the trick.

Problem solved! But I immediately ran into an even stickier problem. It's different enough that it won't be addressed here.

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