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Apple & Novell Integration
4028
Hi All
I am starting to blog updates on our work with Apple in Australia and New Zealand.
Apple Australia and Novell have been collaborating on providing information to customer on how to integrate Apple operating systems and directory services with Novell products.
Many customers in Australia have placed demands on Apple to
integrate their Mac OSX operating system, with management, into their existing Novell environments.
Services included in this integration are:
Network Authentication
Access to file services provided by Novell
Access to file services on Mac OSX Server
Access to Groupwise
Access to iPrint
Access to iFolder
A unified uniqueID (uidNumber) set by the OSX Server and copied to eDir
It is preferred that Mac OSX Server is integrated into the Novell environment allowing Mac OSX clients to interact with and receive the full featured environment provided by that server whilst maintaining the same user name and password across systems.
With this in mind Novell and Apple have embarked on a proof of concept project to research and document the "best practice" approach to integration.
Apple's aim in supporting this project is to achieve seamless, robust integration into Novell's technologies whilst utilizing the native Mac OSX and OSX Server environments.
Stay Tuned for more updates.
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User Comments
Great work!
Submitted by boz on 17 June 2008 - 1:58am.
Keep up the great work, I have customers that are really interested in this!
Already started on this...
Submitted by ttoepp on 17 June 2008 - 1:10pm.
We have our OSX Clients bound to eDirectory and to the OSX Server and they authenticated to eDirectory through LDAP. We bind the OSX Servers to eDirectory as well so they don't have to create local users, they just drag them from eDirectory. We have them mount a shared folder which points to the NetWare Cluster, Teacher's have their home directory on the OSX Server so they can do Synchronization and we also, for just Teachers, mount a folder for their Blogs and Podcasts to post to the Podcast Server.
What I would like is a way that eDirectory can store the WGM settings and deliver those to the workstations in the event the OSX Server is down so that they can still be managed!
Sounds great
Submitted by brwilliams on 18 June 2008 - 12:35am.
Hi There
Just had a question on your solution. Is this using the method where you extend the schema of eDirectory. As per:
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11740....
We are looking a using native connections via Novell Identity Manager to provision users without the need to modify eDirecotory or the OSX Open Directory. It may also be an option for customers who do not wish to purchase a 3rd party add on product.
If you are doing it another way I would been keen to hear more about it.
Brett
Very Similar, but slightly different
Submitted by ttoepp on 21 July 2008 - 10:39am.
Brett,
Yes we are doing some similar items to what Randy showed there, and Randy was helpful when we first started our own several years ago. We are not using as many of the extensions that Randy uses, the logins are pretty quick and we are also for users able to use Synchronization and some have their home directories on OSX Servers, others are located on a NetWare Cluster.
Tim
So how about iPhone integration?
Submitted by stideswe on 17 June 2008 - 1:24pm.
That is good news. Third party integration is the way to go to improve Novell's overall prospects. I doubt whether many third party vendors would have been interested in working with Novell if Novell had not adopted Linux so completely and in such a quick turn around time, so well done to Novell on that front.
Is anyone taking a serious look at iPhone integration with GroupWise? This is a potential danger to GroupWise given the iPhone's native ability to hook straight up to an Exchange server. When a whole bunch of senior executives purchase iPhones and realise that they can't connect them to GroupWise it is really going to put some pressure on us.
iPhone Support
Submitted by brwilliams on 18 June 2008 - 12:39am.
Yes Novell are looking at options for integrating GroupWise with the iPhone. We have a number of paths we can go down and all are being reviewed right now.
There are also some third party GroupWise partners who are looking at supporting the iphone and GroupWise.
I would keep an eye on Dean Lythgoe and Alex Evens blog for updates from the GW team.
I came across a product
Submitted by ddabinett on 17 June 2008 - 2:57pm.
I came across a product called Kanaka that may help the pain for NetWare houses with Macs. It does also work with OES2 but requires at least one NetWare server.
Kanaka
Submitted by cpsemmens on 7 July 2008 - 6:53am.
We used to use Kanaka, but we ditched it after an earlier OSX (.3 to .4 I think) upgrade broke it. We had lots of Macs coming in that we couldn't integrate and had to migrate to Prosoft to get ourselves running again (that broke in .4 to .5 upgrade).
The problem is it can take months to get fixes and communications were few regarding progress on fixes during that time. Condrey are not alone in having this problem, see my other comment about ProSoft :)
Macs are a sizeable part of our desktop real estate, eclipsing our Linux installations by a LONG way. Putting Macs and Linux on an even footing with Windows including ZEN support, would be marvellous and stop the constant "AD can do it" comments we get.
I shall watch this space for developments with great interest!
Christian
Would Love Any Info that comes out of this
Submitted by petefuller on 18 June 2008 - 7:43am.
I was able to set up a Mac OSX.4 setup fairly easily here (using LUM Groups) but 10.5 seems to be a different bear.
I really think an Apple/Novell partnership would be very beneficial to both companies. Apple is weak in the enterprise server realm, but has the largest Unix workstation deployment out there. Novell's strength is in the server arena, but is new to the desktop OS area. Seems like a win/win to me.
Some updated schema updates, nice how-tos would be greatly appreciated.
P
Got to be a good thing
Submitted by colin_pearce on 18 June 2008 - 8:56pm.
Hi Brett
Glad to hear that the POC is progressing.
Even though I am not involved in this area any more I will watch with interest how this progresses.
Keep up the good work!
NetWare for Mac from Prosoft Engineering
Submitted by ProsoftEngineering on 23 June 2008 - 5:39pm.
Prosoft Engineering has been supporting the Mac on Novell networks for many years now:
http://www.prosoftengineering.com/products/netware...
We have many new features in the latest version which is indeed Leopard compatible and we have some new features on the horizon.. We'd love to hear more feedback (feature requests, etc) via our online forms..
Gordon
Prosoft client
Submitted by cpsemmens on 7 July 2008 - 6:43am.
Although it works well enough on supported systems, the biggest problem we have experienced in using ProSoft, and this problem is not restricted to yourselves, but to all third parties we have dealt with, is the protracted time taken to modify your products to work with Apples latest versions, your last one took about five months! Too long. Communications were limited too.
We ditched Kanaka for the very same reasons.
Each MacOSX upgrade broke something.
Mac integration is a major headache for us and I am VERY glad to hear that somthing constructive is being done at last to integrate Macs.
Christian
Great News
Submitted by KeithCraig on 23 June 2008 - 8:55pm.
Brett,
Great to hear that there is working going on with better integration between Apple and Novell (even better with the lead coming from DownUnder). Most of our client computers are Mac and the lack of true integration has been a frustration for me. Can't wait for more news!
Keith
OES2 and AFP
AFP in OES 2 SP1
Submitted by brwilliams on 25 June 2008 - 10:56pm.
Hi Cleik
Novell has ported the NetWare AFP stack over to OES 2 Linux. This will ship in Support Pack 1 later this year.
Identity Manager for Leopard Server
AFP in OES2 SP1
Awesome
Submitted by atrofimov on 27 June 2008 - 8:46am.
How about Mac support in Zenworks, I remember filling in a survey for Novell some months ago re ZCM with questions like "do you really want support for Macs ?". At the very least supporting imaging on iMacs for Windows partition would be nice .. and yes, providing a solution to integrate eDirectory and OD would be great ( using IDM perhaps to synch objects ).
Darned Resource Forks
Submitted by Anonymous on 5 September 2008 - 2:50pm.
All of this is great, it gets a mac attached to the file servers.
But then every file the mac touches ends up with the ridiculous "._" file which ends up polluting the entire volume.
It looks great for the one or two macs, but the hundreds of other users suffer for it.
Until Apple fix this we will be keeping OSX away from our network servers.
btw- I have a nice new intel iMac at home and love it - just not bringing it to work any time soon ;-)
Resource Forks
Submitted by brwilliams on 9 September 2008 - 6:42am.
What method are you connecting the OSX workstations to the server, SMB, CIFS or AFP?
Resource forks will be fixed when AFP is shipped on OES 2 Linux as part of Support Pack 1.
MAC..! geve me a break.
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 6 September 2008 - 12:06pm.
How could Novell who is going as far as to throw away the best network operating system in the world to embrace Linux, even consider collaborating with the ultimate proprietary fascists of the technological word. I think I'm gonna hurl!
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