network login without network home directory

Thanks for the replies, gentleman!

I don't think I want mobile/portable directories.

I came close to what I want by specifying /Users as a home diretories. I created a sharepoint for all the student folders and used permissions to control access and who see what. I used the student group to mount the share at login. I also added the share to the dock automatically.

The only thing I could not do was to have the share display on the desktop no matter which computer they login to. Seems complex (editing fstab.hd) or using a script. I am going to mess around with the latter.

Maybe that would be cleaner but I was worried about the network load over older wireless access points.

If I go with networked home directories, I would keep things in synch and use not use mobile accounts. These laptops do not go home so I don't see any advantage to using mobile accounts. I do want the student's work kept on the servers. The thought with using shares rather than full networked home directories was that some files can be kept locally. It's also the model they use now and are trained on (except we use an open (r/w) shared guest account. However, I think I will try using networked home directories and see how the performace actually is. I only have one class of 10 6th graders who will be doing this. And really, if I think about it, what's the difference? They would save all important files anyway. Using networked home directories, they just won't know it, it's all done "behind their back."

Plus, having the shares apppear on the desktop no matter where they login seems problematic. Seems like that should be very easy to do. I hope that has been addressed in 10.8 server.

So taking the suggestion here, I went back to networked home folders. I then remembered that I need students to use both 10.4 and 10.6 clients. 10.4 clients can not login. I wonder if this is supposed to work. The /library file is in the home folder, which I presume would not work for mixed versions of clients.

Yes, we are struggling along until our new building project refreshes all systems in 1.5 years. I think I am going to have them long in manually via the finder after logging into the local student account. I've learned a lot but I am spending much too much time on this. It had given me some ideas on how I want to do file sharing in the new building with all 10.8 or highrt machines though I am not current on 10.8 server.

I ended up just using Finder to access their folders. Network logins just don't seem to work in a mixed 10.4/10.6 client enviroment. 10.4 will not login with 10.6 folders either locally (/Users) or on a networked home directory.