Isolating and Resolving Windows Management Account Issues

Windows users who are having issues over their relationship with Mac OS X Server are likely to fall into a few main categories:

• The Windows service. Many issues can arise if a change has been made to the Windows (SMB) service. Make role changes sparingly, and if you are running a PDC and BDC scenario, treat the BDC as you would an Open Directory replica. That is, they are expendable and can be erased and set up again relatively quickly.

• Authentication. This can manifest as a result of a bad password or mistyped user name. Authentication issues can be tested if the user name(s) and password(s) are known to the administrator. Also, password policies may have the password about to expire, and the user may not be aware of an expired password.

• Poor user experience. It is possible that the user profile is corrupt or pointing to a different location, thereby negating any login scripts that may run. Rechecking the location of the profile and the path are excellent steps toward resolving this issue.

• Share points not showing up or are inaccessible. Provided the Windows service is operating normally and the user can authenticate, ownership and permissions discrepancies can thwart access to share points. Checking and rechecking the permissions and file-system access controls will help you to discover the anomaly. Should the share point still not be accessible, check service access controls in the Access pane of Server Admin to ensure that the appropriate group is allowed access over the Windows service, as seen below.

  

Exploring Network Home Folder Issues

Home folder issues can include any combination of the issues just listed and can be tested by attempting to create a new network connection to the Mac OS X Server using any other authorized computer running Windows, and viewing the Samba log files to examine the results.

Finally, many additional options that can change the user experience when accessing share points on Mac OS X Server are offered via Samba. These can be examined in the Samba configuration file, which is called smb.conf and located in /etc/.

Managing Remote Windows User Environments

Another aspect of managing computers is running Windows remote access. Remote access can be enabled for Mac OS X computers using Apple Remote Desktop (ARD). As you will learn in Lesson 13, "Using Apple Remote Desktop", many capabilities include taking control of the keyboard and mouse of a remote computer, while allowing you to see the screen and control the computer as if you were sitting in front of that remote computer. It is also possible to use ARD to control a computer running Windows, thereby removing any instances of remote management of computers running Windows.

To control a computer running Windows with ARD, simply open the Remote Desktop administration application and add the Windows computer via the IP address. Prior to opening the Remote Desktop administration software, you should install OpenVNC (Virtual Network Client) software (or something similar that can access information over port 5900 (and port 5800 for Java applications that work with OpenVNC). It is also possible that the VNC software is incompatible with the Remote Desktop administration software. When choosing the computer running Windows from the list of available computers, you may receive a message saying that the software on the computer running Windows is not compatible with the keystroke encryption used with Remote Desktop. You have the options of tunneling the traffic over SSH if you wish.

Controlling a computer running Windows via ARD