Restoring Mail, but not via MobileMe Account Backups

So much for MobileMe backing up my Mail account data! I had a another weird crash, which has been plaguing me since I upgraded OS X Leopard to 10.5.7. The crash happens when I wake the computer from sleep, and plug in my firewire then USB hard drives. When the USB hits the socket, sometimes I get the grey screen of death, in which the only way to recover is a hard reset. This happened again today, but this time, the hard reset broke Mail. After booting up, I started Mail and the only account I had was my MobileMe account. My Google accounts were gone.

I thought, ah hah!, I'll recover from MobileMe's copies of my Mail Accounts. No dice. It must have quickly pushed to MobileMe, the change that happened when the system crashed, so syncing MobileMe did nothing to recover. Searching the web a little, I found various information about restoring the entire mail folder and so on, but it turned out that my mail data, in ~/Library/Mail, seemed intact. So, I decided to try to restore my Mail plist file first, from Time Machine backup, and see if that would fix the problem.

How to Restore Mail.app

Here's how I restored it:

• Close Mail.
• Plug in the Time Machine drive.
• Press option while clicking the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, select "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" and choose your Time Machine disk. You can display this icon in Time Machine preferences. Note, if you use Path Finder, a Finder replacement, like I do, start Finder before you do any Time Machine work.
• Enter Time Machine, and find your last Mail plist backup. In Time Machine, just click a folder or two "back", and see what the date on the file is. The file is ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist where ~ is your home folder.
• Affirm the overwrite, when the restore process asks if you want to replace the file with an older version.
• Start Mail.

This worked. All my mail was present and accounted for. If my mail had been damaged, I could do the same procedure, but after stopping Mail, just rename the Mail folder ~/Library/Mail to something else like ~/Library/Mail-Backup, and restore both the Mail folder and the plist file from your Time Machine backup. It will take quite a bit longer to achieve, but it should work.

I hope this helps someone. Enjoy, and good luck recovering.

Rick's Picks (weekly)

• Informative Site on Bicycle Lighting Systems

  A very informative site on bike lighting systems. With nudity, lol. -- Rick Cogley From the site: Not everyone can afford to buy a commercially manufactured, very bright rechargeable lighting system, which Ken Kifer accurately describes as the best light for commuters. While prices have come down, a good rechargeable lighting system is still over $100 when you add in a good tail light. Adequate dynamo powered lights will cost you over $350 in the U.S. (6 watt dynamo plus front and rear lamp). A lot of people settle for less expensive 3 watt generator light sets which are not suitable for commuting, at least in the U.S.. Others buy el-cheapo handlebar mount lights which are not very bright, and usually not very reliable. This site describes how to build a high performance, rechargeable. lighting system without spending a lot of money. You can spend as little as $40 to construct a system, complete with a sealed beam headlamp, xenon strobe tail light, rechargeable battery, and charger. All components are available from retail or mail-order stores. I don't sell anything (except Flash Flags), this is purely an informational site. This site contains my informed opinions, as well as the views of other groups and individuals. There are many different solutions for bicycle lighting that meet the criteria of "seeing and being seen," and there are many solutions that do not meet these criteria. Choose wisely and use common sense. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars for an adequate lighting system. A lighting system is not rocket science, it's basically connecting a battery to some lamps. The challenge is in sourcing the proper components and mounting them to the bicycle in a secure and reliable manner.

  tags: starlight, nordicgroup, lighting, cycling

• YPK Innovations Cafe 2.0 4-D116

  I got a new YPK bike lock, that allows you to lock front and rear wheels simultaneously. My last YPK's plastic housing degraded and broke, and the steel collar around the hole in the lock that the sliding post goes into started to rotate, making it hard to lock. This new one seems to be upgraded - heavier-duty plastic around the lock itself.

  tags: 4-d116, ypkinnovations, bike-lock, lock, cafe 2.0

• Snap!Japan - Salaryman Haiku Winners

  Dai-ichi Life Insurance has announced their latest Sarariiman Senryuu (Salaried Worker Senryuu, サラリーマン川柳) competition winners. It's the 22nd year for the competition, and people vote on the best humorous haiku that come from the daily life of salaried workers and the news. You may recall that haiku are the poems with a cadence of 5, 7 then 5 syllables. Check some of the sara-sen winners out with my translations. -- Rick Cogley

  tags: sarasen, salaried, worker, dai-ichi, life, insurance

• Avoid Looking Like an American Tourist | ReasonPad

  Careful. This site reasonpad dot com is indicated by Safari and Google as being infected with malware. -- Rick == Interesting list of dos and don'ts for the loud, obnoxious American tourist. Funny, but I think difficult for most Americans to follow. -- Rick Cogley | From the site: As an American traveling in a foreign country, the last thing you want to do is stand out like a sore thumb. Not only do you have a greater chance of getting sucked into tourist traps, but you’re also a more obvious target for getting mugged or even kidnapped. So, are you aware of the things you do, say, and wear that make you look like the stereotypical tourist?

  tags: reasonpad, american, tourist, tips

• 15 Terminal commands to supercharge OS X | News | TechRadar UK

  TechRadar UK's favorite terminal commands for OS X. Long live CLI. -- Rick Cogley | From the site: Although you can replicate the results or functionality offered by most Terminal commands via various bits of freeware and shareware, it's simpler to fire up the command line and paste in a handy command. Below are our favourites, centring on workflow efficiency and system streamlining and improvements. Note that if Terminal becomes a mess at any point, 'clear' removes everything from the current window or tab.

  tags: techradar, terminal, osx

• Wolfram|Alpha

  New Search Engine Wolfram Alpha is interesting but not quite ready for prime time. -- Rick Cogley | From the site: Making the world's knowledge computable - Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

  tags: search, semanticweb, knowledge, engine, wolfram, alpha, searchengine, search engine

• Camper.rb, a ruby script to link Campfire to Jabber - SuperJared.com

  Campfire to Jabber proxy script written in ruby. -- Rick Cogley | From the site: At work we use 37signals’ Campfire group chat for our office discussions, as well as customer support. This web-based chat is great for teams to intercommunicate as well as keep the channel open for our customers to speak with us. However, I am not a fan of keeping a couple tabs open to the same pages all day. One reason is that it becomes a RAM hog after a few hours. It also adds another chat program to the list that I have open.

  tags: superjared, ruby, camper.rb

• Do you Poken?

  Cool cellphone-strap gadget that lets you connect by exchanging SNS info via your "poken". -- Rick Cogley | From the site: With your poken you instantly connect with new friends across online social networks when and where you meet them.

  tags: poken, do you poken, social network

• Sheldon Brown-Bicycle Technical Information

  An amazing and encyclopedic body of knowledge about cycling and bicycles. Sheldon Brown's site. -- Rick Cogley

  tags: cycling, bike, bicycle, reference, sheldon, brown

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

New YPK Innovations Lock

I got a new bike lock from YPK Innovations - a Cafe 2.0. The model I bought has a more flexible and just slightly lighter cable than the last, as well as much harder, more durable-seeming plastic around the lock. I like it better.

There were two problems with the old one, that cropped up after 18 months of daily, outdoor use at the train station:

• The plastic bezel around the lock broke, exposing the metal lock.
• The metal collar inside, around the lock itself started to rotate, covering up the hole that the post was supposed to be inserted into.

Here are photos of the problem:

I think the one I just bought is a generation old, but it still seems better than the first one. These YPK "cafe" locks are nice because you can make two loops for flexible locking.

Rick's Picks (weekly)

• Saboten no Hana Lyrics - Kazuo Zaitsu

  Kazuo Zaitsu (kanji: 財津和夫) of the Japanese band Tulip, is the singer of a favorite song of mine, "Saboten no Hana" or The Cactus Flower, which is a song about hope despite love lost. It was the theme song of an enormously popular 1993 drama called "Hitotsu Yane no Shita" or Under One Roof. Zaitsu san has a unique and pleasant voice that I like, and this song always brings a tear to my eye. The song features a simple piano solo in the bass register, which to me is the man's sad voice mixed with hope. I thought I'd translate the lyrics so others could understand it too. You can see Zaitsu san sing it and see some stills from the drama on YouTube. -- Rick Cogley

  tags: kazuo zaitsu, saboten no hana, hitotsu yane no shita, lyrics, drama, japan

• Best Tokyo Subway Map: Vollmer Design

  Vollmer Design's superior map of the Tokyo rail and subway system is a must for any visitor to or resident of Tokyo. The map is printed on A3 paper, but is folded small to the size of "3 x 1 2/3 matches" according to the nicely-designed Informa website where the map is available. Very affordable, even inexpensive, at JPY 270 yen online, it's less than the cost of a Starbucks latte, or maybe a typical iPhone app. The map is thankfully bilingual, so a visitor can show it to a Japanese speaker and get help, while reading the romanized versions of the names. It also has clear icon markers of major tourist sites like the Tsukiji Fish Market near Ginza, and the Tokyo Tower. -- Rick Cogley

  tags: vollmer design, tokyo, map, subway, informa

• http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com

  Just like the URL says: these are awkward family photos. Really, really awkward!

  tags: awkwardfamilyphotos.com, funny, family

• Mobile Opportunity: A quick history of software platforms: How we got here, and where we're going

  An excellent article on software platforms, by Michael Mace. -- Rick Cogley | From the article: Intuit and Stanford recently asked me to give talks on computer platforms and what makes them successful. (By platforms I mean software with APIs that third party developers can write apps on top of; Windows and Macintosh are both platforms, as is Java.) Platforms are a hot topic in Silicon Valley these days. The success of the iPhone app store in mobile, and Facebook on the web, have forcefully reminded people that you can grow a tech business more quickly if you get third party developers to help you. Almost every tech company I work with is trying to expose some sort of API or platform offering in its products.

  tags: michael mace, mobileopportunity, software, platforms

• Disco - Mac Disc Burning

  "Drag, Drop, Disco." Good alternative to Toast for disc burning.

  tags: software, osx, mac, burning, cd, tools, disc

• blog:Cogley - Disc Media Burning with "Disco", a Toast Alternative

  Disco is a polished, inexpensive (USD 29.95, currently 10 dollars off as of 13 May 2009) alternative to Toast Titanium. I've had mixed results with Toast, and did not want to pay the upgrade fee, so I started looking for alternatives. I've done a few burns in Disco so far, and it seems to work quite well. No problems or "coasters" yet, at this time.

  tags: disco, media, burn, discoapp.com, toast, cd, dvd

• blog:Cogley - Collapsing All Folders in Path Finder

  I could not find this information in the help file or on the CocoaTech forum. If you use CocoaTech's Path Finder, the Finder replacement that has a lot of extra functionality that is missing in the normal OS X Finder, you may be browsing around in a folder with many subfolders, and wish to somehow "collapse" the folders you opened, to clean up the view. Clicking the disclosure triangle of 100 open subfolders is rather tedious, so isn't there an easier way? I stumbled on a method. Here it is.

  tags: path finder, cocoatech, collapse, folders

• blog:Cogley - Updating Leopard OS X 10.5.6 to 10.5.7

  I updated my MacBook Pro's OS X from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 today, and there was a little hiccup. Here's what happened.

  tags: apple, leopard, osx, update, 10.5.7

• Snap!Japan - RIP Kiyoshiro Imawano - translation of "ameagari no yozora ni"

  Kiyoshiro Imawano, the hugely-popular lead singer of RC Succession died of lymphatic disease at the age of 59. He'll be dearly missed. One of their hits, "Ameagari no Yozora ni" is representative of his music, and you can hear it on YouTube. I thought I'd translate the lyrics to it. The original Japanese is followed by romanized Japanese, followed by my English approximation. It's full of double-meanings, of course.

  tags: Kiyoshiro Imawano, ameagari no yozora ni, rock

• blog:Cogley - Migrating User Folders on OS X Leopard Server

  I did an experiment on my test Leopard Server to migrate User Folders from the default /Users to another direct-attached volume based on some questions that came up. The problem is, OS X Leopard Server defaults to using the system disk as the Users partition, and this disk is not often your largest disk. It can fill up quickly if users start storing their photos or music. Long story short, the trick is to use Workgroup manager to auto-create the User directories, but, before that there's some things you need to do for prep.

  tags: osx, leopard, server, user, folder, migrate

• blog:Cogley - Does my Mac's SuperDrive do Dual Layer

  If you are wondering whether the SuperDrive in your Mac is dual-layer capable, or whether it can store 8+ GB of data on a data DVD rather than 4+ GB, have a look at the System Profiler app (you can Spotlight it to easily find it if you use Leopard), and check Hardware, Disc Burning, DVD-Write. If you see the tell-tale DLs in the description, you're good to go. Just buy the appropriate media.

  tags: superdrive, osx, dual-layer, DL, system profiler

• StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - Save Money, Eat Better, Help The Environment

  StillTasty.com is a very useful Web site that lets you check the shelf life of common foods and ingredients. Know your "best before" from your "expires on". Searchable database, and various tips. www.stilltasty.com

  tags: food, cooking, health, reference, safety, drink, stilltasty, Cocina

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Disc Burnin' with Disco

Disco is a polished, inexpensive (USD 29.95, currently 10 dollars off as of 13 May 2009) alternative to Toast Titanium. I've had mixed results with Toast, and did not want to pay the upgrade fee, so I started looking for alternatives. I've done a few burns in Disco so far, and it seems to work quite well. No problems or "coasters" yet, at this time.

Here's some highlights:

• Disco supports spanning of a backup set to multiple discs, and lets you know how many discs you will need to complete the backup. Very convenient, and you just feed it the disc media when prompted, while it works.
• Disco stores a discography for created media or disc images, so you can easily search for files on your media.
• Straightforward workflow, assisted by what the publisher calls "Crossroads" technology. It's unnoticeable, and I had no problems following, so in a way I guess it works!
• Creation of CDs or DVDs with Hybrid, HFS+, UDF, PC Joliet, or ISO 9660 file systems, which means you'll be able to read the media most anywhere.
• Burn to all Apple-supported in- and external drives, and enjoy CD multi-session support, burn and erase for rewritable media, and support for dual-layer DVDs.
• If your audio is supported by Quicktime, you can create an audio CD or easily switch to a MP3 data CD. Also, you can drag-and-drop to change track order.
• You can create disc images from files and discs in the CDR, ISO or DMG formats, as well as create CDs from ISO, DMG, IMG or CUE/BIN.

Oh, I almost forgot that it "smokes" when you burn, provided a new-enough Mac. Pretty cool effect!

Assessment after Some Usage

I used Disco for a few burns (the demo allows you 7, gratis), and I found the program to be a tag buggy here and there. There's times where restarting Disco will help it detect discs, or, where it mis-detects the burner you want to use. I have a San Disk Cruzer USB stick, which for some reason Disco thinks is a burner, and it gets "stuck" on it until I go into Disco Preferences and change it.

Path Finder - Collapsing All Folders

I could not find this information in the help file or on the CocoaTech forum. If you use CocoaTech's Path Finder, the Finder replacement that has a lot of extra functionality that is missing in the normal OS X Finder, you may be browsing around in a folder with many subfolders, and wish to somehow "collapse" the folders you opened, to clean up the view.

Clicking the disclosure triangle of 100 open subfolders is rather tedious, so isn't there an easier way? I stumbled on a method. Here it is.

How to Collapse All Subfolders in Path Finder

1. In list view, select all. Command-A.
2. Press Option-Left Arrow.
3. Sit back, amused, but don't do anything boneheaded like pressing Command-Delete.

And voila! Collapsed folders.

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7 Update

I updated my MacBook Pro's OS X from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 today, and there was a little hiccup. Here's what happened, but see UPDATES below:

• I noticed there was an update available, so I shut down all the user applications and things like ExpanDrive and Plaxo, then tried Software Update from the Apple menu. Software update started to work, then stalled at around 150 MB of 450 MB downloaded, claiming to take another 8 hours to download. It's not my ISP because everything else is fine. Everyone must be hitting the server at once. Stopped the update during the download.
• Intending to use the "combo updater", which is just the full update download, I found the update on Apple's download site. There are two updaters: the Delta Updater, and the Combo Updater. The 450+ MB Delta is just labeled as "Update" and is for updating from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7. The 700+ MB Combo is for any 10.5, to 10.5.7. Decided to try the Delta.
• Apple Installer offers to run the updater when it downloads, so I chose to do that. It seemed to work, then offered to Restart so I did that.
• After the restart, the process froze on a blue screen with a mouse pointer.
• I force restarted, then after the restart, the system auto-rebooted.
• After the second restart, the expected normal grey Apple Logo screen with the progress spinner appeared. It took a long time, but it finally came to the login screen, and login was normal.
• I confirmed that the system did indeed it had been upgraded, by checking Apple menu, About this Mac. It's indeed updated to 10.5.7.

When I started Mail and iCal after the upgrade, there were no "please wait while we update your database" type of messages, as there have been in the past when Apple has made database changes to these applications.

I'm going to do an OnyX run, to clean things up and reset permissions and so on as a matter of maintenance, and I'll report back here if there are any other problems related to the update.

UPDATES

13 May 2009, 23:55 - the system worked snappily all day, but this evening I got the grey kernel crash screen. The "You need to restart" in multiple languages one. Ugh. Apparently, Apple recognizes the problem and will issue a fix. Recommend waiting.

14 May 2009, 11:41

The 10.5.7 update is definitely much snappier. A lot of things are running very fast. This is nice. Now, just don't crash on me again, please!

15 May 2009, 10:30

Crashed after waking from sleep. Had to force reset. System worked well after that.

16 May 2009, 9:30

Flock crashed and could not be force-quit. Activity Monitor would not start. Terminal kill command would not kill.

What's in the 10.5.7 Update

FYI, here's what Apple says is in the update:

Address Book

• Improves reliability of Address Book syncing with iPhone and other devices and applications.

AirPort

• Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.

Client management

• Improves reliability of synchronizing files on a portable home directory.

• Fixes an issue in Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5 in which managed users may not see printers that use the Generic PPD.

• Client computers that use UUID-based ByHost preferences now respect managed Screen Saver settings.

iChat

• Addresses an issue that could cause an encryption alert to appear in the chat window.

• Setting your iChat status to "invisible" via AppleScript no longer logs you out of iChat.

• Resolves an issue in which pasting text from a Microsoft Office document could insert an image rather than text.

Graphics

• Includes general improvements to gaming performance.

• Includes graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes.

• Includes fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards.

Mail

• Includes overall performance and reliability fixes.

• Improves Connection Doctor accuracy.

• Fixes an issue that could cause messages identified as junk to remain in the inbox.

• Fixes an issue that could cause Mail to append a character to the file extension of an attachment.

• Addresses an issue that could prevent Mail from quitting.

• Improves reliability when printing PDF attachments.

MobileMe

• Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.

Networking

• Improves Apple File Service performance, especially when using a home directory hosted on an AFP server. Important: If you are using Mac OS X 10.5.6 (client) to connect to a • • Mac OS X Server 10.4-based server, it is strongly recommended that you update the server to Mac OS X Server version 10.4.11.

• Improves the performance and reliability of TCP connections.

• Improves reliability and performance for AT&T 3G cards.

• Updates the ssh Terminal command for compatibility with more ssh servers.

Printing

• Improves printing for the Adobe CS3 application suite.

• Improves printing for USB-based Brother and Canon printers.

Parental Controls

• Addresses an issue in which a parentally-controlled account could be unable to access the iTunes Store.

• Includes general fixes for time limits.

• Resolves an issue that prevented adding allowed websites from Safari via drag and drop.

Time Machine

• Fixes issues that could cause Time Machine to state the backup volume could not be found.

• Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.

Safari

• Improves compatibility with web proxy servers.

General

• Includes Mac OS X security improvements. See this website for more information.

• Addresses inaccuracies with Calculator when the Mac OS X language is set to German or Swiss German.

• Improves the performance and reliability of Chess.

• Improves DVD Player performance and reliability.

• Performance improvements for iCal are included.

• Fixes an issue when running the New iCal Events Automator action as an applet.

• Adds a Trackpad System Preference pane for portable Macs.

• Improves compatibility with smart cards such as the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card.

• Updates time zone data and Daylight Saving Time rules for several countries.

Mac OS X 10.5.7 is available via Software Update and also via standalone installers.

Does my SuperDrive do "dual-layer"?

If you are wondering whether the SuperDrive in your Mac is dual-layer capable, or whether it can store 8+ GB of data on a data DVD rather than 4+ GB, have a look at the System Profiler app (you can Spotlight it to easily find it if you use Leopard), and check Hardware, Disc Burning, DVD-Write. If you see the tell-tale DLs in the description, you're good to go. Just buy the appropriate media.

The Human Body, Understood

A random and very funny list circulating 'round the Internets. Understand your own body.

The Human Body

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

One human hair can support 3 kg (6.6 lb).

The average man's penis is three times the length of his thumb.

Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.

A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.

There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

Women blink twice as often as men.

The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain.

Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.

If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

Women reading this will be finished now.

Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

Lol.

Rick's Picks (weekly)

• Adjix URL Shortener

  Adjix is an URL shortener that uses HTML redirects instead of 302's. From the site: Short Links. Tiny Ads. Big Payoff.

  tags: adjix, twitter, short, url, tools, tinyurl, webservice, service, advertising

• Building a URL Shortener

  From the site: With all the talk of URL shortening services, I decided to add a quick service into Snook.ca, which is run on CakePHP, to redirect a short URL to a post. Because my static content already has short URLs and all I have are posts, creating a short URL handler for it was very easy.

  tags: url shortener

• Build Your Own Url Shortener For Free! | NetHackz

  From the site: Build Your Own Url Shortener For Free! - URL shorteners are awesome. The less characters, the better! But what happens when that server goes down or some network issue prevents people from getting to your links? Nothing. Blank pages. Better yet, why would you want to brand someone elses domain name? Think about all the traffic and notoriety you’re giving tinyurl and is.gd? Can you use that same traffic to your advantage?

  tags: url shortener

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Rick's Picks (weekly)

• Snap!Japan - English Bookstores in Tokyo and Yokohama

  My list of some English bookstores in Japan, but mostly in Tokyo or Yokohama where I live, for the visitor or resident.

  tags: bookstores, tokyo, yokohama, kinokuniya, maruzen, yurindo

• Snap!Japan - Social Media Acceptance in Japan

  I agree that Social Networking Service acceptance, or lack thereof, is not a simple matter of Japanese being "shy". Just go to Shibuya, Harajuku, or Kabukicho to prove otherwise! I think SNS acceptance is driven by the marketing of the SNS, by whether it "feels right" and "fits right" for Japanese people, and by whether other people are using it. I think that's what Thierry is saying anyway, but my perspective is that SNS's like Mixi are Japanese to begin with and not a localized version of an application like Facebook or MySpace.

  tags: sns, social media, thierry de baillon, mixi, facebook, rick cogley, snapjapan

• blog:Cogley - Enable Color Managment in Flock or Firefox 3

  Don't suffer with color management off. Turn it on now. If you use anything but IE 7 you are still out of luck, but Safari users have had this functionality for quite a while. I refer to "color management", which is the concept of adjusting the color properties of devices, like displays, monitors, printers or scanners, so that colors mean the same thing across devices, and more importantly look the same. The adjustment can be done in the operating system itself, which is what Mac OS X does (and one reason it is superior to Windows), or via International Color Consortium "ICC" profiles and other software trickery.

  tags: flock, firefox 3, rick cogley, icc, color management

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Migrating User Folders in OS X Leopard Server

I did an experiment on my test Leopard Server to migrate User Folders from the default /Users to another direct-attached volume based on some questions that came up.

The problem is, OS X Leopard Server defaults to using the system disk as the Users partition, and this disk is not often your largest disk. It can fill up quickly if users start storing their photos or music. Long story short, the trick is to use Workgroup manager to auto-create the User directories, but, before that there's some things you need to do for prep.

How to Migrate OS X Leopard Users Folder from Default to External

In Terminal, you can either sudo bash or use sudo in front of every command. I like to use sudo bash, but remember to exit out of your sudo'ed bash shell later, to avoid risk. Don't use sudo bash if you don't know your way around a Terminal. If you are not sure, don't use it, and just go for sudo in front of each command you want to use.

sudo bash
Password:

Create the containing Users folder on the external drive, which we'll call "EXTHD" here. You can confirm its POSIX permissions using ls -la.

cd /Volumes/EXTHD
mkdir Users
ls -la

Start Server Admin, select the server in the left-hand list, then select the File Sharing section from the toolbar. Copy down all the attributes of your existing Users folder Share Point, for example to auto-mount as "User home folders", protocol options to share via AFP, SMB, FTP or NFS, and base ACL and POSIX Permissions with whether to inherit or not.

Now, you can Unshare the Share Point in Server Admin. Click Unshare and Save. Click another Share Point to make the list refresh.

After you confirm the Users Share Point is gone you can create a new Users Share Point on /Volumes/EXTHD/Users, your external disk. Reset all the settings you wrote down for your original Users, then Propagate Permissions using the Gear dropdown.

Start Workgroup Manager, and specify the new User share for each user. Multi-select users, select your new share, and click "Create Home Now" to create.

Now you can migrate the contents, which is probably the most tedious part because there's unfortunately no automated way to do it. Use the mv command, and you may need to reset permissions after the move. Users can try connecting and accessing their files. Here's one way, which involves using the su command from root's shell to mimic any given user, in this case John Allen Smith or "jas".

bash-3.2# su - jas
mysrv:~ jas$ whoami
jas
mysrv:~ jas$ ls
Desktop Documents Downloads Library Movies Music Pictures Public Sites
mysrv:~ jas$ pwd
/Network/Servers/mysrv.mydomain.com/Volumes/EXTHD/Users/jas
mysrv:~ jas$ cd Documents/
mysrv:Documents jas$ ls
About Stacks.pdf
mysrv:Documents jas$ mv /Users/jas/Documents/* .
mv: ./myfile.txt: set owner/group (was: 1034/80): Operation not permitted

If you get errors like the "Operation not permitted" above, deal with those permissions separately. Use the exit command to exit to root again, and use it again to get out of the "sudo bash" root shell. I hope this helps get you started migrating user folders to an external hard drive, in OS X Leopard Server. Enjoy!