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Gametes · Jun 21, 2003, 06:35 PM

I brought my FW hard drive home with a copy of my hard drive on it while m girlfriend borrows my powerbook. When I connect it to my dad's computer, even after restart I am not able to log in as myself. presumably the boot system only checks /Users ad not attached dives. Am I doing something wrong or is there something I can change to make this work, short of creating a new user on my dad's computer?

Drizzt · Jun 21, 2003, 06:52 PM

Well.. you stuff's there all right, but the system doesn't know you are there.

You should create a new user on you dad's computer, change the UID to be the same as the one on your PowerBook and change the path to your home folder (2 last steps done through NetInfo Manager).

Uncle Skeleton · Jun 21, 2003, 06:52 PM

can't you boot from the firewire drive?

Mithras · Jun 21, 2003, 08:24 PM

Well, make a new user on your dad's computer.

Then open NetInfo Manager and change the user's home directory to /Volumes/FirewireDisk/path/to/Users/yourhome/

You can always delete the user later (just make sure to detach your firewire disk first, or change the home back, so you don't delete the files from the firewire disk!)

Drizzt · Jun 21, 2003, 08:30 PM

Originally posted by Mithras:
Well, make a new user on your dad's computer.

Then open NetInfo Manager and change the user's home directory to /Volumes/FirewireDisk/path/to/Users/yourhome/

You can always delete the user later (just make sure to detach your firewire disk first, or change the home back, so you don't delete the files from the firewire disk!)

Won't work, permissions won't be right..

Art Vandelay · Jun 21, 2003, 10:46 PM

Booting from your drive is the easiest solution. It involves the least amount of hassle and it will be exactly as if it was your own computer.

Mithras · Jun 22, 2003, 10:43 AM

Originally posted by Drizzt:
Won't work, permissions won't be right..

Yeah, you're right. I forgot about that post.
I was gonna edit it to say: "Nevermind, just do exactly what drizzt said."

and add,
do a ls -ln to find out your numeric user ID,
then change the UID of the new user to your old ID.

Anyway, thanks.

a-poria · Jun 22, 2003, 05:31 PM

gametes,
if you ditto (sudo ditto -v -rsrcFork /Users/yourname /Volumes/yourname) your home folder onto the external drive, which means keeping the same permissions, follow the netinfo directions above and it will work. i have been running this way for two weeks. if you want to take the drive to another machine, just created a user on that machine with the same user name and pass as the external drive.

one warning: make sure to always have your external drive plugged in before logging on, if not it will boot from your home folder on your hd and in turn change the name of your external drive. if by accident you make this mistake go back take a look in terminal at the volumes mounted, get the changed name of the external drive and enter it into netinfo. good luck!

Gametes · Jun 22, 2003, 06:13 PM

Thanks all.
I'll try and just boot from my drive, I guess. I'd rather not run around creating new users.
I'm also submitting feedback to apple that they should have the login screen search all attached drives for available users.

Drizzt · Jun 22, 2003, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Gametes:
Thanks all.
I'll try and just boot from my drive, I guess. I'd rather not run around creating new users.
I'm also submitting feedback to apple that they should have the login screen search all attached drives for available users.

That is not a good idea for many security reasons...

Alex Duffield · Jun 23, 2003, 12:17 AM

Click on the drive icon, and get info.

Under ownership and permission ther is an "Ignor ownership on this volume"

Then you will have full access to any file on that drive.

Alex Duffield · Jun 23, 2003, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by Gametes:
Thanks all.
I'll try and just boot from my drive, I guess. I'd rather not run around creating new users.
I'm also submitting feedback to apple that they should have the login screen search all attached drives for available users.

The logon does not just look in /Users to see who is alawed to log in. It uses the Netinfo Database.

There is no way OSX could be made to just scan all atached drives for home directories for it to boot from.

Each user has an id, the first user you create on any OSX system is ID # 501

I am id 501 on my system. My wife is 501 on hers. If I connect a fire wire drive to my wifes system she can read all the files on the drive, with out having to do the tip I mentioned in my last post. That is because her system sees the files are owned by 501 and that is her id.

If I log on to my wifes sytem my account ID is 502 because I am the second user that was created on that system. So now MY files on the external drive apeare to be owned by my wife.

Does any of this make any sence to you???

Welcom to Unix and file permissions!!!