Can ARD3 work with the Active Directory setup on a Windows machine and without the need of Open Directory

Question

Can ARD3 work with the Active Directory setup on a Windows machine and without the need of Open Directory

We need the 'Golden Triangle' setup to work with ARD3 running on a Mac server with client Mac details retrieved from a Windows Active Directory. In this system, the ARD3 will be used to install packages from a Mac OS X server, where the client Mac list is gathered directly from a Windows Active Directory, which is already in place.

So, please guide me whether Apple Remote Desktop 3 is capable of getting client machine details from an Active Directory without the need of re-creating the client Mac list in the Mac server running ARD3.

If ARD3 can not be used in this case, do you recommend any other tools that can resolve our issue.

Thank you in advance.

Sudheesh.

OS X Server

Posted on May 14, 2013 1:43 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

May 14, 2013 6:30 AM in response to sudheeshchandran

ARD cannot directly obtain client information from Active Directory, no. It may be possible to create a script that would get such information and be able to put it into ARD, but I wouldn't begin to know how to write such a script. You may also be able to bind your OS X Server to ARD and create groups there. This article is obsolete for 10.6 or later but may provide some clues as to how to proceed:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24276

There are a number of third-party systems that can manage Macs that may be able to draw information from AD, such as Casper, LANDesk, and others. Which if any would meet your needs depends on many factors including how many devices you need to manage, whether you're looking for a cross-platform tool, your budget, etc. This is a difficult issue to address in a forum like this since there are so many variables to be considered.

Regards.

Reply

Answer 2

May 15, 2013 6:51 AM in response to varjak paw

Thank you Varjak Paw.

Your reply was very helpful for me to conclude on what I can expect from ARD3 and what else I should be looking at to resolve my issue. I understand that there are many variables to be considered in determining the right solution in this case.

Our main requirement is that a Mac server need to be able to deploy/install packages to Mac clients which are authernticated through AD running on a Windows server. We would like to achieve this with a low budget Mac server software, since we have the AD controlling the entire network seamlessly.

Reply