server slow login

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server slow login

Hello.

I am a teacher and I am running a mac network. I have 30 iMacs on the network. All are 21.5 inch mid-2011. All have 2.5GHz intel i5 processors. All have 8GB of 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM. The computer running the network is an mac-mini server mid 2011, 4gb 1333Mhz RAM, 2GHz i7 processor . All of the macs are running El Capitan 10.11.1.

I have set up the students in our school using OD via the server app (5.0.15). The server app only has 3 sections configured - Open Directory, File Sharing and Profile Manager. My mac network is connected to the rest of the school so that we can access the internet - nothing else.

I have been having problems for a while now, but today was really bad. Some of my students experienced waiting 20-40 minutes for the computer to login and then the computers performing really sluggish once they had. If I login to the local admin account however, the computers run like a dream.

I am a Music teacher and we regularly use these computers to use garageband. Garageband is also extremely sluggish when accounts have logged in.

I have spoken to the IT technicians who really struggle with macs as they have never used them and they tell me that DNS and DHCP are all done through their network so the mac mini has no control over these. I have looked things up and it has been suggested that this may be an issue???

I have also got my students to make sure that they un-tick reopen windows when logging back in as i thought there may be an issue there with the macs trying to open too many programs at login, but this doesn't seem to have worked.

My students are starting to lose interest in using the macs as they more often than not are sluggish and take forever to login.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Server App-OTHER, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 30, 2015 8:23 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 1, 2015 11:32 AM in response to kimmingsj

If an appropriate DNS entry has not been made in the DNS Server for your school then this could easily explain - in a major way - why you're experiencing the problems you're seeing. DNS is absolutely crucial as a foundation for a robust and relatively trouble-free server. Especially the way you're using and wish to use it. Your IT Technicians are not to blame if the decision makers for your school do not make provision for them to begin to understand and support a platform they're not familiar with.

Having a rock-solid network designed to accommodate Macs and what you want to use them for is fundamental to how well this all works. In no particular order important elements should include:

Gigabit network to Desktop as a minimum

DNS not based around a .local domain

An appropriate share/folder structure for your students that does not hamper or cause slow downs for student login.

The above is not an exhaustive list by any means but are a good place to start. Beyond what's been offered here is hiring an Apple Consultant experienced in integrating the platform in a Windows network. You would benefit tremendously as well as learning how to successfully use the platform in an educational environment.

Does this help?

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