Joining a Mac to a domain
I have a Mac added to my Active Directory domain lately. Mainly due to graphics editing software and capability. The brand new iMac was loaded and also running Parallels in order to run both XP Professional along with the Mac OSX. Parallels is a virtual pc environment.
Why the 2? The user needed to have his mapped network share. They can use the XP Pro within parallels to access their domain share. From what I’ve read you cannot get a users AD share accessable to a Mac because of the Windows protocols. However, you CAN connect a Mac to a domian so that they can use their Entorouage email with exchange. Thanks to Someone Else for the instructions!
I followed the instructions step by step and it was gold. You pretty much create an Organizational Unit, and add the computer account to it (Not a user account!). Then go to the Mac and adjust the network and share utilities accordingly.
The only thing I had to figure out was how to configure the mail client. Which if you need to do, make sure you choose the manual route. There is some network info you need to add in that doesnt come with the default mail account setup.
Hi there,
Glad you found my instructions helpful.
You’ve hopefully found this out by now but it should be quite possible to have a user’s home drive from AD mount on login to a Mac. All we did was ensure it was specified in the AD profile for the user, and made sure that the mac clients were properly registered in the AD DNS and everything just worked.
rob
Thanks for stopping by Robb. Unfortunately a lot of this is beyond me at this point because I’m new to SBS2003/Exchange/ and client-server in general. But Im working on learning what I can. Mostly by trial and error. I’m thinking I should really get some books on them!
I have been in the tech industry for 10 years and used to have a Mac network and currently run several windows networks. With the parallels and the new macs that can dual boot, it is much easier to integrate with a windows server. I do think the integration from native mac can be better. It isn’t Mac’s fault, but I find it better to integrate Windows pc’s on a windows network and keep my mac as an independent hardware piece for home or graphic use. Mac has its own network server which is great, but I haven’t seen many companies moving to it. I think they are missing some key components that make it a compelling sell to businesses.
@Christopher.
Thats how we are set up at my employer. We have a graphic department, and a business side. I pretty much leave the Mac’s to do their own thing. However there is always a few users that differ from the norm.
I did end up running parallels on that Mac so that user could still use the business end of things. The only other reason to join to the domain was so he could use his entourage email client. He preferred not to use the PC side for that.