merging mac with active directory

[Gerard]

calling all mac experts- I'm finally getting round to intalling our mac network.


i want to run it along side my legacy and use active directory for authentication but configure a different home directory for the mac network.


at the min i have the server binded to active directory ok and set up a new shared folder on the HDD of the mac server.
but when i click on a user preferences on the mac server the home dir option is greyed out saying Custom.(I'm assuming its pulling the path from active directory and pointing to the windows share)


when i log on using my windows credentials i am getting authenticated ok and a blank home directory in finder - however there is a finder window next to the trash can that lists all the folders that are in my windows home dir from which i can access my windows files.


how can i fix/change the above to direct users to a new share on my mac network while retaining the authentication again my windows server?




 
secondly is there a way to stop users having the ability to navigate to server shares via finder as all my folders including hidden shares are easily visible




any help is greatly appreciated as i don't have a clue

[Gerard]

Can anybody shed any light? hit a brick  wall with this

[Aaron]

Gerard sorry it has been a while from I last done this but have you looked at what they called The Magic Triangle letting mac work properly within a windows domain? I used this when I got out mac network working with windows properly but it was allot of back and forward testing. The issue I had was always they you could see the network shares all of them but as long as you have your security settings correct this shouldn't be an issue although a of a pain than anything.

I put that same post up at one stage with others and asked why the mac machines would see all the shares on the windows network (pupil goes to their my documents and goes up one folder they see everyone) but they cannot access any other folder due to the access rights but I never got that one sorted sorry.

[Aaron]

if your using your mac as a file server and you also have a windows file server you need to on the mac side tell the directory in which to search for the files/folders (on ours it was login using windows credentials and continue to use windows folder redirection.

[Gerard]

Cheers Aaron,  done a bit of googling about the magic triangle and I think I already have this set up.  Yes I want to use the Mac as a file server for macs but I cannot for the life of me configure users to use a different home directory than what is specified in active directory.   I'll have a look for the option to tell the Mac which directory to search for files and folders tomorrow, I think I seen that option somewhere in the binding process

Thanks again Aaron

[Aaron]

No worries Gerard I was just taking a quick look and found this might be useful for you.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/integrate-macs-into-a-windows-active-directory-domain/

I know its not exactly what your looking for but it might be a start your mac server should have its own group policies that you might be able to use so that when your windows users login they can also access the directories on the windows file server (that way you don't get the usual ahhhh my files are on the other computers)