Home on the Go with NetInfo
by Alan Graham02/08/2002
As you browse Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue, you’ll find sections in every chapter called "Power Users’ Clinic." These are advanced tutorials on topics for more adventurous Macintosh users. What's cool about them is that they dig a little deeper into technical topics, giving power users the confidence they need to be Mac experts.
I contributed to this section in David's book, so I'd like to share one of my favorite power user tips with you now.
Use NetInfo
As you know, Mac OS X stores all your settings, your identity, and your files in your “Home” directory. This directory resides on the primary boot disk by default. But what if you move between multiple computers and use a removable drive? Can you bring your Home directory along with you? Yes, you can, though it requires some clever manipulation of NetInfo Manager (found in your Utilities folder).
First, make sure you have the latest version of your Home directory on the removable (hopefully FireWire) drive you want to use, and that it is plugged in before you start the log-in procedure.
Now open the NetInfo application and authenticate yourself. When NetInfo Manager is open, you should see a screen similar to this:
Since Mac OS X relies heavily on permissions you’ll find that, by default, you can’t make any changes here until you authenticate yourself. Simply click on the lock icon (lower-left corner) and enter your password. Once authentication is complete we are ready to move to our new “Home.”
In the Directory Browser you’ll find an entry for users. Navigate to /Users/yourusername. In the window below you’ll find all sorts of cryptic information. Scroll down until you find the Property listing for "home." It may look something like this:
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Double click on the Value(s) side (/Users/yourusername) to edit it. Now all you have to do is change this text to /Volumes/diskname, where "diskname" is the name of the removable disk or the drive you plan to use. (“Volumes” is the name of an invisible folder on your Mac OS X machine--it lists the names of all disks present.)
Press Enter, and then save your changes. Repeat this on every Macintosh you plan to use the removable media on and you are good to go.
One Small Detail
  iPod users: anyone carrying their Home directory around in their pocket? | |
One tiny little quirk you’ll find after setting this up is that Mac OS X will leave an orphaned "yourusername" identity in the Users folder. This is basically a duplicate that won’t do any harm, but you may find it confusing. You can always delete it by booting into Mac OS 9 and throwing it away.
My iPod is My Life
I think the coolest execution of this technique is using your iPod to store your music and your Home directory. You can move your Home directory to the iPod and keep your entire life in your hand, which could be disastrous if you don’t back up. Perhaps this is a hint towards Apple’s idea of what the digital lifestyle and hub are all about. Now, if they would only build iPod support into that new Ginger device....
Alan Graham is the creator of the Best of Blogs book series and is a frequent writer on the O'Reilly Network.
O'Reilly & Associates published (December 2001) Mac OS X: The Missing Manual.
Sample Chapter 2: Organizing Your Stuff, is available free online.
You can also look at the Table of Contents, the Index, and the Full Description of the book.
For more information, or to order the book, click here.
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Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.
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different UIDs for the same user name
2002-09-23 13:14:20 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
One thing that should be noted is that under the concept of a UNIX username is a UID. Your UID is what really identifies files as belonging to you, etc. So if you have two systems and the same username on both, it doesn't guarantee that you will have corresponding privileges (as far as I can figure). This has been a real pain since I used the removable home directory setup.
Since I've been using this setup, I can actually wipe users from systems without any real downside. So I'm drop my user on one system, recreate it, manipulate the UID and home directory values in NetInfo so that they match my other system and see if that straightens everything out.
To the author; please post a comment about this issue!
Oh yeah, I've also had weird residual /Volumes/ listing for drives that have been put away properly and unhooked from the computer. The result is that when I rehook the firewire drive up, from the command line (ls) the drive name is listed (and is empty), but the new instance of it is name "drive name 1", thus throwing NetInfo off. I've ended up having to manually "rm -rf drive_name" and then reboot. If I don't do anything the old instance of the drive_name persists beyond reboots even!
Any clue about how to work around this?
Thanks,
Walter
tech@mars-hq.com
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PowerBook as detachable home
2002-03-04 08:36:30 rbraine [Reply | View]
If you are lucky enough to have a powerbook and a desktop Mac then a better use of this trick is to keep your home in your powerbook and firewire it on to your faster desktop using the technique described. I do this with a G4 Titanium and a G4 Dual 800. Nice.
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iPod- probably not a good idea
2002-02-14 15:36:24 masri [Reply | View]
It's probably not a good idea to use an iPod this way.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60920#faq19
You'll note that Apple says booting is an "unsupported feature." This means, of course, that Apple's warranty won't cover you if you burn it out. And I remember reading somewhere that someone had tried using an iPod as an OS X Server boot drive, and they burned theirs out. From the little I understand about this, the problem is that the iPod's tiny hard drive is designed to power up, be used for a short period of time, then power down. The iPod case doesn't have room for a lot of heat dissipation. I believe the heat buildup from using the HD for an extended period could cause the drive to fail. So, the iPod is great to move files around. Hook it up, copy them over, then disconnect. It's really not designed to run for days (or weeks) at a time, like a normal 2.5" HD.
- Adam
Firstly, you will need a functional Home Folder on the base machine that I'll call INTERNALUSER. The Home Folder on the removable drive I'll call EXTERNALUSER.
To properly unmount the removable drive Home Folder called EXTERNALUSER - logout of EXTERNALUSER, login immediately to INTERNALUSER, and only THEN eject the external drive, logout/sleep/shutdown.
To connect to the Home Folder on the removable Home Folder called EXTERNALDRIVE - firstly login to INTERNALUSER, only THEN mount the external drive, then logout of INTERNALUSER, then login to EXTERNALUSER.
I'm sure Apple could make this easier, but that would seriously undermine the value of their laptops. :)