User accounts on multiple machines

[zauhar]

Hi folks, I guess this counts as a networking question.

I want to set up user accounts for my students on a cluster of networked iMacs, which I hope to have upgraded to 10.1 by next week.

How do I set up accounts on the machines for all of them at the same time? OS X does not have an /etc/passwd file that I can copy to each machine. I have been looking in vain to find details on exactly what netinfo does. I see that OS X server lets you export the netinfo database as a text file, and then import it. Will that work on "regular" OS X? (I should point out that I do NOT have OS X server installed, I just saw this on an on-line manual on the apple site.)

What I really need is the "OS X Sysadmin" manual, which I can't find! If anyone can point me to a book or URL that will answer questions like these, I will be grateful.

Thanks!

Randy

[Novajo]

I think (really not sure here), that the only thing you have to do is to set the networked Mac to get their information from a given Netinfo server. If you athenticate and select the root node, then the "master" property seems to be the thing to change. You would set that to the IP address of your main server. I have never done it myself, but I have read about doing it. All the plain files (passwd, shadow, groups, etc...) are not used because netinfo provides the information.

Here is some information about the Authentication mechanism:

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/SystemOverview/BootingLogin/The_Login_Procedure.html

There is a note on how netinfo will look on the network for the login/passwords.

I think the import/export capability is only for backups of the netinfo database.

[zauhar]

Thanks Novojo. My impression is that I should be able to do as you suggest. However, the assumption at Apple is that you will have at least one copy of OS X Server running if you intend to administer a network. I think that's just because they want you to pay a premium price for the administration tools.

Since I will be doing a lot of maintenance myself, it may be worth my while to install a copy of the server software, and maintain accounts the "easy way" (if there is such a thing).

I will post again and describe my experience with this.

Randy