slow logon when not on network

J

jparsley

Registered
When my Mac is not connected to the company network, it takes about 2-3 minutes to logon. If I am in the office and logon with it connected to the network, it is of course near instant. If I then log out, unplug the network cable, then log back in, it is a bit slower but still logs in within seconds. If I reboot, it will take 2-3 minutes if not plugged into the network.

My mac is bound to our domain and our domain is a .local domain. I'm guessing it's trying to authenticate with out domain servers, but I am not yet familiar enough with linux or the Mac OSX to go very deep into troubleshooting on my own.

I have a MacBook Pro running 10.6.2.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Josh
 
This one is so simple you will kick yourself. Go to System Preferences->Account pane and make a separate account for the local login. Then on the Domain account (and the new one you setup) in the Accounts pane uncheck "Automatic login". Then go back put to System Preferences->Network and at the top oof the pane you will see the drop-down for "Location". Create a Home Location & a Domain Location to keep the network settings different.

Good luck. :)
 
Go to System Preferences->Account pane and make a separate account for the local login.
Click to expand...

Is this the only way to do this? If I setup a local account then this will defeat my purpose in having it bound to the domain and using domain credentials.

We are wanting all of our Mac users to be bound to our domain and use domain credentials to login. I'm testing everything out to have an idea of the problems that we might run into it.

Why can't it be just as simple as OSX seeing the domain controller isn't available and using cached credentials? I guess it's doing that now... but not in a very timely manner. Is there a way to make it time out faster and use cached credentials sooner?

Thanks for the answer, but unless I am misunderstanding something I don't think that I can go this route.

- Josh
 
jparsley said:
Is there a way to make it time out faster and use cached credentials sooner?

Thanks for the answer, but unless I am misunderstanding something I don't think that I can go this route.
Click to expand...

That's why he suggested you uncheck auto login on both accounts. Why not have a local account set up on the machine also for a back door for issues? I don't think he was suggesting you couldn't use a domain account.
 
I don't want the users to be able to log in as anything other than the domain credentials. We will have a local account for admin purposes, but we don't want our users to use it.

Are you suggesting that while they are away from the office, they log in as a local user and while in the office log in as a domain user? Or am I completely misunderstanding? (It's very well possible I'm completely missing what your suggesting.)
 
jparsley said:
Are you suggesting that while they are away from the office, they log in as a local user and while in the office log in as a domain user? Or am I completely misunderstanding? (It's very well possible I'm completely missing what your suggesting.)
Click to expand...

There you go...Hence creating two different locations in network prefs to toggle between networks.
 
But I don't want them to have a local account they can use. :/

I feel like I'm missing something here..
 
I don't understand what you are missing here? Then don't let them have access to the local account. Its not a necessity for the domain user. It was simply an IF they needed to toggle the machine between different locations. Have you ever done any network admin/desktop support before?
 
It was simply an IF they needed to toggle the machine between different locations. Have you ever done any network admin/desktop support before?
Click to expand...

Not with Macs.

In windows, if the user has logged into the domain before you can take the computer where ever you want and be able to log in- it doesn't matter if the domain controller is available or not- it will use the cached credentials. It doesn't take 2-5 minutes for Windows to figure it out.
 
Hi,

Did you ever get any where with this?

We have exactly the same issues, any Macs take an age to log in when off the network. It's a right pain!
 
Unfortunately, no.

I called into Apple support and they suggested two things:

1) Change my domain from something other than .local. We just can't do this at this time.

2) Manually input the DNS servers to be what it would be in the office. Well, this helps speed up the login problem but of course if you plan on using anything that uses DNS (website, anything) you aren't going to be able to. Basically, this would be ok if you don't plan on using it on a network when away from the office.

He also said that there 'might' be an update to resolve the issue in the future.....

At this point, I don't have a resolution. We aren't going to set up two accounts, one local and one for when on the network. We have a local account on the Macs, but they are not for our users.

The strange thing is that it doesn't do this consistently. I haven't quite figured out what the pattern might be.

I posted it on the apple forums too...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2364067&tstart=0

I'm the only person who has responded to it though..
 
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