[Casper] Upgrading from Tiger to Leopard

Tue Jan 6 07:52:28 PST 2009

I've been doing this in production environments (large enterprises as well
as my family's Macs) for at least two years on both Tiger and Leopard
without any issues.  What are the potential issues you're concerned about?
The reason for including the permissions repair is lost to antiquity and
poor documentation I'm afraid, but I seem to vaguely recall it having
something to do with the /Users/Shared folder.  Since it works, I'm not
overly concerned with uncovering the answer, but if you care to, you could
comment out the permissions repair line and see what the difference is.

Whether netinfo or ds is handling your home folders, it refers to them as a
filesystem path.  As far as my knowledge and experience goes, there is no
difference in how home folders function between a system with a genuine
/Users path and one with a symlinked /Users path.

----------
Miles A. Leacy IV

 Certified System Administrator 10.4
 Certified Technical Coordinator 10.5
 Certified Trainer
Certified Casper Administrator
----------
voice: 1-347-277-7321
miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
www.themacadmin.com

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Thomas Larkin <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:

>  I don't know if I think that is a totally wise idea.  I have read on
> several occasions either at AFP548.com or macenterprise.org about moving
> home directories and then connecting them by symbolic link.  While I can't
> exactly recall the specifics other than it has to do with NetInfo and the
> location of the home directory or with Open Directory (dscl in 10.5) and how
> the user database actually points to the home folder.  Also, if I recall
> diskutility will not repair permissions on user data, it only does it on
> system data.  I am not saying it won't work, I am just saying there may be
> some issues as I have read from other people posting and how NetInfo and
> Open Directory handle the user database.  Please correct me if I am wrong on
> that, because I have never tried to make a user partition on a local machine
> just for home directories, well at least not in OS X.  In Linux I have.
>
>  If you don't have network homes, or portable home directories I really
> strongly suggest you look into something like that.  I know that 10gigs of
> data for each user can eat up storage pretty quick, but storage is actually
> well, kind of cheap these days.
>
>  Over the summer we reimaged 6,000 Macbooks from 10.4 to 10.5.  10.5.4 was
> a damn nightmare but 10.5.5 smoothed most of those things out.  I wiped out
> all of our servers, reloaded them, and since I house home directories on
> separate volumes on the network I just pointed in WGM the volume for home
> directories.  I also recommend a full wipe and fresh import of LDAP.  I just
> exported mine to plain text (users and groups) and then reimported them via
> WGM.  This will not preserve passwords, so I did a master password reset.  I
> have tools now to set unique passwords for users as well, and will be
> implementing that over next summer.  Next summer I am wiping out everything
> and freshly loading every thing.
>
>
> ___________________________
> Thomas Larkin
> TIS Department
> KCKPS USD500
> tlarki at kckps.org
> blackberry:  913-449-7589
> office:  913-627-0351
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> "Miles Leacy" <miles.leacy at themacadmin.com> 01/06/09 8:01 AM >>>
>
> If you don't mind doing some extra work now, you can move people's data to
> another partition now, and in the future, you can do as you like with the
> system volume going forward without worry about user data.
>
>
>   Note that if you boot an existing Mac (with user data) to a Leopard
> volume, you can create new partitions non-destructively and this task can be
> scripted.
>
>
>   I would (and do) do it like this:
>
>
>    #!/bin/sh
>
> #
>
> ##### HEADER BEGINS #####
>
> # scr_sys_symlinkUsers.sh
>
> #
>
> # Created 20071011 by Miles A. Leacy IV
>
> # miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
>
> # Modified 20090106 by Miles A. Leacy IV
>
> # Copyright 2009 Miles A. Leacy IV
>
> #
>
> # This script may be copied and distributed freely as long as this header
> remains intact.
>
> #
>
> # This script is provided "as is".  The author offers no warranty or
> guarantee of any kind.
>
> # Use of this script is at your own risk.  The author takes no
> responsibility for loss of use,
>
> # loss of data, loss of job, loss of socks, the onset of armageddon, or any
> other negative effects.
>
> #
>
> # Test thoroughly in a lab environment before use on production systems.
>
> # When you think it's ok, test again.  When you're certain it's ok, test
> twice more.
>
> #
>
> # This script moves /Users to /Volumes/Data.  If your data volume is named
> differently,
>
> # be sure to replace each instance of "/Volumes/Data" with the path to your
> data volume.
>
> # Run as an "at reboot" script when imaging with Casper.
>
> #
>
> ##### HEADER ENDS #####
>
>
>   /bin/mv /Users /Volumes/Data
>
>
>   rm -R /Users
>
>
>   /bin/ln -s /Volumes/Data /Users
>
>
>   diskutil repairPermissions /
>
>
>
> ----------
> Miles A. Leacy IV
>
>  Certified System Administrator 10.4
>  Certified Technical Coordinator 10.5
>  Certified Trainer
> Certified Casper Administrator
> ----------
> voice: 1-347-277-7321
> miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
> www.themacadmin.com
>
>
>
>
>   On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 4:10 PM, David Lundgren
>
> <david.lundgren at brooks.edu>
>
> wrote:
>
>>  I was wondering how you all have done migrations from Tiger to Leopard.
>>
>> We have an Active Directory setup where the users home directories are
>> local
>> to the machine (our faculty often have 10GB+ of data, and some have
>> laptops).
>>
>> We were contemplating doing separate user and OS partitions at the same
>> time
>> to make any future OS upgrades less painful, without having to worry about
>> user data.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> David Lundgren
>> IT Systems Administrator
>>
>> Brooks Institute - "Passion, Vision, Excellence"
>> 27 East Cota Street
>> Santa Barbara, CA 93101
>> (888) 304-3456 (toll-free)
>> (805) 690-7615 (office)
>> http://www.brooks.edu
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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