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Brian Lyttle
Asked: 2009-05-06 18:38:27 +0800 CST

Can a Mac with OS X 10.5 (Leopard) authenticate with a Windows 2008 domain?

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I would like to have my MacBook Pro authenticate against Active Directory running on Windows 2008. A couple of years ago I tried to set this up between OS X 10.4 and Windows 2003 but I wasn't successful. A detailed step-by-step guide and a list of gotchas around domain security policy would be great.

mac-osx active-directory authentication apple

2 Answers

  1. I'd recommend starting with this guide on Apple's mailing list (credit to Gilbert Palau):

    The crux is quoted here:

    1. Go to the Directory Utility ‐> /Applications/Utilities/
    2. Click the Advanced Settings Button ‐> Buttons should appear on the top
    3. Click Services
    4. Make sure you're authenticated to makes changes ‐> click the lock and login
    5. Double‐click the Active Directory
    6. type in your domain in "Active Directory Domain" ‐> ex. (mydomain.com) watch out if your domain ends with .local opposed to.com or .net, you need to disable bonjour if it ends with .local.
    7. click bind
    8. enter in username and password ‐> just the username NOT email@hidden or MYDOMAIN\User
    9. Click ok.

    http://lists.apple.com/archives/augd/2007/Nov/msg00033.html

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  2. Two great resources on joining OSX clients to Active Directory are:

    The Apple white paper on how to do it: pdf

    An Apple video presentation on best practices for OSX AD: seminar

    Apple has an extensive list of white papers and the like for a whole range of topics - check it out at http://www.apple.com/business/resources/

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