relocation of Users folder

[teckenny]

We have a lab of iMacs – each bound to our Student domain - each used by number of different students who are individually required to log in using their allocated Active Directory details.

Question: Is there a way to ensure that when a student logs in for the first time on a particular iMac that their Home directory is created on a separate partition or drive ? and that each time the student in question uses that iMac they have access to their Home directory ?

I have been looking at FSTAB – is this the way to go ?

The imacs I am working with are running OSX10.9.5

I would be grateful for any light anyone can shed on this.

 

[chscag]

Question: Is there a way to ensure that when a student logs in for the first time on a particular iMac that their Home directory is created on a separate partition or drive ? and that each time the student in question uses that iMac they have access to their Home directory ?

OS X is not Windows, forget about setting up a separate partition or drive. Why don't you just create a separate account for each student on the iMacs? When they log on with their credentials, they'll log into their own user account and home folder. No need to do anything else assuming the iMacs have a large enough hard drive to accommodate the number of students who have access.

 

[teckenny]

More information...

Hi chscag - Thanks for your quick response.

Because the iMacs in question are bound to the student domain within our organisation this means when a student logs in using their Active Directory credentials for the first time on a particular iMac the system automatically creates an account in Macintosh HD/Users. These machines are used by numerous students enrolled on a number of various courses. Allocating specific local accounts to specific students on each iMac would be unmanageable. Our organisation demands all students authenticate via AD whether they are using a mac or a pc
Disk space is a problem - a large number of the students using these macs will be using Final Cut Pro X to edit hi-def film projects
By default Final Cut Pro X saves the users projects in the users Movies folder within their Home directory on the Macintosh HD. Our continuing problem is ensuring that students point their projects from the first instance to another drive or partition. If they don't (and there are always some !) the Macintosh HD soon fills up - often to the point where the System cannot operate and we have to boot from an system on external drive or use the Recovery partition to allow us to move student accounts to an other drive or partition to free up space.
The best solution would be to change the default location of the Users directory

Sorry about the length of this

 

[Slydude]

I don't have the necessary Automator actions to test heck they may not even exist but here's an idea.

It might be possible to create something in Automator and then brings up the appropriate screen in Final Cut Pro X for the user to point their project to a more appropriate location. I've used a similar script in the past to check for my media drive before launching iTunes. When I need to do this I click that script icon rather than the usual iTunes icon.