Q: Slow connection to xserve for some clients
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Mar 31, 2014 2:47 PMby Antonio Rocco,OD environment = Open Directory.
If don't know what this is then think of it similar to Microsoft's Active Directory. Judging by your answer you seem to be confirming network accounts with user's home folders existing on the server. If home folders are 20-30GB or more in size there will be longer and longer login times even on a fast gigabit network.
You could try and alleviate this delay in a number of ways. An obvious one is to prune accounts that have the largest home folders. They can't possibly want all that data all of the time surely? Another way is to stop using iPhoto as iPhoto libraries can get large. Besides iPhoto is only really recommended for local accounts with local home folders. I'm sure you can think of other ways yourself?
One thing you should try is configure the XServe's dual NICs in an LACP bond. You have to use a suitable layer2/3 or better switch as its partner.
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Mar 31, 2014 3:35 PMby chaosbringer255,Oh, no the home directories are local. All of them. The servers are simply used for backup storage and department data storage. I don't believe any of them use iPhoto but all of them do use the Mail application. However I don't think any of those applications are causing the problem. Im sure most of their home directories locally however are well over 40gb. All of the people who cannot connect quickly use macbook pros as well, however, as mentioned, only individual accounts take a while to connect.
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Apr 1, 2014 3:12 AMby Antonio Rocco,If you've never done any remedial maintenance works such as clearing out stale data, local caches, apps long since unused and removing crud and cruft from users' home library preferences folder then over time home folders will get larger and larger and impact on login times.
There's no real reason to store much data in local accounts on your workstations anyway as data relevant to the institution you all work for be it documents, spreadsheets, mail, calendars, contacts etc can all be stored on the server. All there really should be locally are the applications the institution you work for needs to conduct its business.
From an administrative point of view maintaining what you have makes no real sense either. Effecting regular back-ups of individual accounts on individual workstations is a poor use of anyone's time. One of the main reasons for having a server is to centralise this aspect of any institutions daily operations. It makes more sense backing up and protecting one device (your server) than a dozen or more.
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Apr 1, 2014 8:37 AMby chaosbringer255,I just started working here a couple months ago, so I'm still barely figuring out how the set everything up especially since they were in the process of moving locations after my employment. I'm sure they don't need say 75% of what they have on their machines but they whine and moan when their email application is missing a folder so I'm not gonna bother touching that haha.
As for backups, we have what, 4 unused servers? So we just use them all as backup devices for the **** of it.
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Apr 1, 2014 3:14 PMby Antonio Rocco,Are the MacBook Pros connecting to the network wirelessly or over the wired network? If wireless I would start troubleshooting the WAPs that provide the connection. It's possible they are not positioned and/or configured properly? For example if there are two or more WAPs nearby yet all the MacBook Pros are connecting to just one and are not being load balanced by the WAP controller (assuming you have this facility) then connectivity will get increasingly poor as more and more network clients connec to it will get an ever decreasing portion of the bandwidth available.
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Apr 1, 2014 4:14 PMby chaosbringer255,Everything is wired.
I spoke with my supervisor he said the home directories were disabled on the server. There are only four accessable directories any use can access, including admins without remotely logging into the machine. The user accounts on the machine are pretty much just the admin.
He believes its a permissions thing, but isnt sure why exactly.. I read elsewhere saying that could be a possibility [if i could find the link again i will post it up]. Again, its not a system-based issue but more of a user-account issue, as I can log in with their machine and my user account with no problem at all.
I also just formatted one of the mbps (literally, just now) and with a clean install on his login, same issue, where as mine, instantaneous.
