Shared network font library - using Font Book

If you use Workgroup Manager and your clients are bound to the server via LDAP - try this, it works for us.

On your server, put a folder called "Library" wherever you wish (outside of System and Library for the Server itself and not inside another shared item). Put a folder called "Fonts" in the new "Library" folder

Open WGM
Go to Sharing
Select "All"
Find and Select your "Library" folder
Under General select "share item and contents"
Under Access set permissions - ours are Root rw, Admin rw, Everyone read only. Propogate permissions to the contained folders.
Under Protocols disable any protocols you don't plan to use. With AFP make sure it is called "Library" and that guest access is possible. We have all other protocols disabled.
Under Network Mount select "enable network mounting," choose AFP as protocol and make sure that the mount is Used for "shared library"

If your clients are bound to the server via LDAP, reboot them and the client machines will connect to the server and use your new shared "Library" there as an option after the "Library" folders in the client machine itself. The new library will not need to be mounted on the users desktop as it will already be mounted by the client itself. The fonts will show up in Font Book under Network.


Put your fonts in the "Fonts" folder in the new "Library" folder on the server and all clients should now be able to access them. You can put other Library items in the network accessable folder just like the fonts and have them accessable to all bound clients.


hope this helps
- erich

Create a mount record is the same. You want and need one for this to work "automatically."

Are your clients bound to the server via LDAP? If they are not, they won't know where to get the mount record. The fact that you sound like you can mount the new Library manually but not automatically suggests they are not.

When running correctly this share will show up as already mounted. The users will not have to do it manually. Your server will also show guest users logged in at the IP addresses which are doing the automounting. Does your server show guest users for the client IP.

You must have the server set to permit guest users - see Server Admin > your server > AFP > Access. If guest access is not permitted this will not work.

Network globe comes up automatically in Fontbook if everything above is running properly and not at all if there is not a Network available Library folder. Faster way to check - see Client computer disk drive > Network (in left column) > if this is working you will see a library icon alias which will show you the shared contents on the server.

I know this one is obvious but has the client been restarted?

-erich

From what you describe, your clients are not bound to the server.

Yes, you can have numerous shares on any one server. Just to make sure again, you can manually mount the new shared font library from a client?

There may be an easy way to tell which machines are bound to the server from the server but i do not know it.

Have you gone to a client and run Applications > Utilities > Directory Access ?

If not, try that, in the window that comes up, log in through the lock, and make sure LDAPv3 is running (has a check next to it), double click on LDAPv3. If you do not have any servers listed in the next window, your client is not bound to anything. Select "new" and put in your server's ip or fqdn and leave the default options and login as is.

Your client now knows where your server is. Reboot. This time you should have access to the shared library of fonts and your server should show an AFP guest user at the client's IP.

Yes, unfortunately you will need to do this to each of your clients if you have not already.

-erich

Another thing to check, take a look at the long post by Gerrit DeWitt in the middle of this discussion

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=683900&tstart=0

It talks more completely about the idea of setting up your server to have auto mounted items. This is essentially the same thing you are trying to do. My suggestions have all been essentially following the same setup as Gerrit's second automount procedure.