[bitjumper]

We are a multi-mac family. Because I don't know how to share home folders, one computer is designated the main computer to keep files, pictures, movies, music, important documents, etc. The other computer is just for browsing and is the traveling laptop. Soon we'll be getting a 3rd computer.

Is there a way we can have our personal home folders on one machine be shared as our home folders on each of our other Macs. That way I won't have three homes depending on which Mac I'm on.

What we would like to do is be able to login to any machine and be able to use one's own mail, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, and Safari data from our main machine.

I'm wondering about performance. Wouldn't things be sluggish going over the network?

Is this easy to set up? Are there different ways it could be done? How? I would consider setting up a Mac OS Server if that would do it. But that is pricey. But if it would give us a reliable, easy way to do it, I'll do it.

Erik

[besson3c]

There are ways to do that, but right now mounting remote network volumes and relying on them to this extent is generally not something I recommend, unfortunately, The reason being, if you disrupt your network connection or anything unexpected happens to the machine hosting these files, the Finder will spaz out. You'll either get long spinning beachball delays, or the Finder will just crap out entirely.

I would re-explore this idea once you get Leopard on these machines, since the Finder problems seem to finally be gone after all of these years of complete suckage.

[Simon]

AFAIK OS X Server lets you do that.

[pinenuts]

besson3c, using another machine as a file server is perfectly acceptable. It's done all the time in educational and corporate environments.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by pinenuts 

besson3c, using another machine as a file server is perfectly acceptable. It's done all the time in educational and corporate environments.

We aren't talking about a file server though, but roaming home directories.

[DogGone]

The best way of doing this is to have each meachine setup with identical usernames for repsective accounts.

1. For example user Joe Blogg has an account on the main machine with the short name of Joe.
2. Set up an identical account on your second machine. You can choose a different password if you wish.
3. Make sure File sharing in on. The help can guide you on that.
4. On the second machine, go to network in the Finder and a link will be available for the main machine.
5. Open the link and when prompted put in your shortname (Joe) and your password and connect to the main machine (your home folder should be an option)
6. You can drag the home folder to the right hand side of the finder to create a shortcut. If the shared folder in unmounted for some reason then selecting it will bring it back up.

You can also put the folder as a login item to have it mount when you boot up.
If the main machine goes to sleep it may not be available on the network so you may need to adjust the energy savings preferences or simply wake u the machine when you need it.

Repeat for all users you have and they will be able to save and open files on your main computer. Since you will be relying on one machine then backing up is more important.

Note that Leopard will automatically recognize your user accounts on other machines making this setup even more easy to use.

[Simon]

I'm wondering if this would work on a regular (non-Server) OS X:
• on the server create a user account Joe and turn on AFP sharing
• on the client create a user account Joe
• set up the client to mount the server's Joe directory at boot time
• on the client use NetInfo Manager to map Joe's user home to /Volumes/Joe (which is the mounted server share)
• on the client log in as Joe -> your entire settings, documents, prefs etc. are actually on the server, but your using them on the client
Will that work?

Or as a (simpler) alternative w/o using NetInfo Manager, could you just do:
sudo rm -r /Users/Joe
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Joe /Users/Joe
Would that work?

[Scott-G]

I would not rely on network shares if you are using a laptop. What if you should ever leave the house? You won't have any home folder and you'll probably get spinning beach ball while it is trying to access it.

I have multiple macs, two of which I use frequently. My main machine is an iMac in my home office. I do all my heavy work on that like iMovie, iDVD, etc. I also have an iBook that I use when I want to sit in front of the TV or on the deck. My world is synced using .Mac. With a 9GB iDisk synced to both machines and syncronized bookmarks, address book, calendars, and IMAP email client I am always in sync. When I leave the house my local copy of iDisk is there and when I come back it syncs back to my office.

I don't use iTunes on my iBook because I have an iPod I sync to my office mac that is always on and downloading podcasts, etc. I have music sharing turned on if I did want to listen to something on my iBook. I use a launchd useragent to run an rsync to periodically sync my iPhoto files from office to the iBook as well as backing up my iBook to the iMac. All changes to iPhoto have to be done to the master on the iMac because any changes on the iBook get overwritten.

If you can afford the cost of .Mac it is great for this kind of environment.