After spending half an hour on the phone to IBM/Lotus in the States this afternoon, I now understand that the Notes/Domino 6 roaming users feature does not work on the Macintosh, after all. Or, at least, it does not work in any way that’s of any use to my Mac users.
Roaming, as Lotus appears to understand it, is the bit where you can have your local data (nab, bookmarks & journal) sync up and down between the client and the roaming profile server. And that bit does work on the Mac. But what we want to do here (and surely, what anybody wants to do anywhere) is to have that user be able to log in to another Mac, and get that same data synched down to the second machine. And that’s a no go, I’m afraid. To do that, you have to have a multi-user installation, and the multi-user installation option is currently for Windows clients only.
As far as I can make out then, the only actual roaming a Mac user can ever do is to a Windows PC! Maybe there’s some people in the world who will find that useful, but none of them are in my company! The only way it’s ever going to work properly is for there to be a multi-user installation feature made available on the Mac. Start badgering your Lotus representative today! And let’s be realistic: OS X only is just fine.
Cheers,
Subject: Correction. Hotdesking can’t be done.
My IBM/Lotus contact is at pains to point out that you roaming does work between Macintoshes; they just have to be your two Macintoshes! In other words, a person with a Mac in two different offices can roam data between them. But only that one user can do this, because there’s no multi-user install feature on the Mac.
I stand corrected, but I still argue that such a limitation ensures that this “roaming” is of extremely limited use. I had equated roaming with “Hotdesking”, by which I mean multiple users roaming between multiple machines; not just one user roaming between multiple machines, that only he can use. My mistake, it seems.
Cheers,
Subject: Well…it can, but not really as a function of Notes…
Mike,
If you have an OSX server and you have your users log into a single netinfo domain, they can certainly do this. Just as they can if you use roaming user profiles in Windows. As a matter of fact, you can map your users data and preferences directory to the same place so they can roam between macs and pcs!
Not only will they be able to roam their Notes data directories, but all of their data and preferences.
It’s kinda outside the scope of this forum but basically:
Get apple’s Understanding and Using Netinfo Domains (from their website).
Set up an OSX server as a netinfo domain host, point your client machines at it.
Install Lotus Notes as normal on one machine. Move the Data folder to the users home directory on the server, reset the privs so the user can access it. Log in as the user to the netinfo domain. Their Notes Prefs and their Data folder will be mapped to their home folder on the server.
To automate this process, you can copy the data folder on the server to Macintosh HD/System/Library/User Profiles/. Every time you make a new user, they’ll get a fresh copy of the Notes data folder and be ready to setup at their first login.
cheers,
mark
Subject: RE: Well…it can, but not really as a function of Notes…
Mark,
Many thanks for your response. I’m no expert on OS X, I’m afraid, but the way I read it, you’d be storing the user’s Data directory permanently on the OS X server, yes?
Cheers,
Subject: RE: Well…it can, but not really as a function of Notes…
Right – exactly the same way as we all implemented “roaming” in previous versions using Novell server, etc. If the data directory is held on a server, it is accessible from anywhere on the network automatically through the workstation login.
Subject: RE: Well…it can, but not really as a function of Notes…
I’ve got an idea…but I’m not sure how to implement it.
Is it possible to login via Active Directory, store the user’s data directory on an smb share mapped as their home directory, but also rsync that data directory to the local machine for when they are not on the network (for laptop users).
Has anyone tried this?
Subject: while you’re at it…
While you’re at it, badger them for an OS X Designer!
Subject: no, lets not
asking for them to extend something that is already there (roaming to support multi-user) is one thing, but asking them to support something that had such low user numbers, and was already crippled due to the windows-only features, is another.
I am a mac user. I use VPC for Designer. Lets be realistic and ask Lotus to focus on the things they can do
Subject: OS X Designer - No thanks
Sorry, but an OS X Designer is not a priority for me. If you want to fight that battle, please do so on another thread. There’s plenty of those around if you don’t want to start a new one. Best of luck to you!
Cheers,