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OSX To Feature Portable User Accounts?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Oct 11, 2006 05:36 PM
from the home-you-can-take-with-you dept.
Businesses OS X Operating Systems Apple
eldavojohn writes "A new patent filed by Apple is causing speculation that OSX is soon to receive a new feature. From the article: '[the patent states] that the user account may be stored alongside general data storage or "other functionality". All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"
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  • Ultra portable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BWJones (18351) * on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:37PM (#16401023) Homepage Journal
    So, ideally this would be part of a uber road warrior ultraportable solution rather than an addition to a USB drive or iPod. Since the demise of the 12in Powerbook G4, many of us have had to shlep around larger form factors (15in Powerbooks/Macbook Pros) that are a bit harder to deal with on planes, trains and such.

    I would hope for a little tablet much like the Newton, but running a full version of OS X and given the costs of flash drives, this may in fact be possible at 32 to 64GBs in size which would make for a usable battery life as well. Travel is difficult enough and for really long flights (international ones), battery life simply does not cut it, even with the new MacBooks. And even if you did have a power outlet in your seat, they are incompatible with the current magnetic and oh so cool MacBook power systems.

    Having something like this that one could back up photographs to, give talks from, check email and calendar and address books, read ebooks and mark up pdf documents, be able to link via Bluetooth to your cellular phone and such would all be possible in a small form factor that one would not necessarily want/need the ability to run big apps like Photoshop on.

    And when the trip is over, you plug into your desktop at home and automagically have everything sync up.

    Oh, please... oh, please... oh, please.... Come on Steve! You and I have talked about this going back..... what, years now! The technology is there, the market is there, all the pieces are in place.

    • Considering how much progress they've made with Portable Home Directories, I'd imagine something like this wouldn't be too great of a stretch.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Mac Degger (576336)
        It's been in the cards for a while...the idea isn't new (hell, even I've discussed it on- and offline many a time). How they could get a patent on this is beyond me, for all the examples in books, magazines and on the 'net.

    • or a DRM limitation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by doodlelogic (773522) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:40PM (#16401047)
      Maybe for movies the studios are demanding only the paying user can view on their iPod - so movie downloads will be tied to a user account on each device.

      • Maybe for movies the studios are demanding only the paying user can view on their iPod - so movie downloads will be tied to a user account on each device.

        That seeems unlikely. They're already tied to an iTunes account (the kind that can be used on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods), so why also tie them to an OS X user account? I'm guessing that since Apple manage the former on their servers, it's a lot easier for them to keep track of what you're up to.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrchaotica (681592) *

      I would hope for a little tablet much like the Newton, but running a full version of OS X and given the costs of flash drives, this may in fact be possible at 32 to 64GBs in size which would make for a usable battery life as well.

      I would hope for a 10-12" (~2lb) convertible tablet, much like a cross between the Thinkpad X-series and the old Sharp Actius MM-10 (it had a dock!).

      But most importantly, I want well-supported syncing between systems. I've got two Macs now (an iBook and an iMac), and it's absurd

  • Impressive (Score:5, Funny)

    by TCM (130219) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:39PM (#16401041)
    If only other systems had thought of that. You could implement it so that all the data of one user is stored in a single directory, called home directory.

    We could even invent a new notation specifically for that. Like, I don't know, ~user/ or something.

    Man, Apple users get all the goodies. :(

    • Re:Impressive (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hypnagogue (700024) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:50PM (#16401183)
      You may want to consider that the problem is more subtle than that.

      Just because you have your home directory on an iPod connected to a foreign Mac doesn't mean that you can authenticate and log in. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could have, in your home directory, credentials signed by a trustee that you could use to log in to any system, with your access limited to writing to public areas or your own home directory. Furthermore, encrypt that image on the iPod so that it can't be accessed unless you authenticate successfully. I'm not sure what the scope of the invention is, since I refuse to read patents or patent applications, but it might be a great solution to a tough problem. It also has implications for DRM licensing schemes -- licenses that apply to the user, not the computer.

      I know sarcasm is like breathing after a few years on slashdot, but this might actually be an interesting invention. We'll have to wait and see.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by epee1221 (873140)
        with your access limited to writing to public areas or your own home directory.
        Darn! I was gonna put a sudoer account on a jump drive and root every box in sight!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by catwh0re (540371)
        Just a few things about this and your comment.

        The feature was to appear back in 10.3, but was likely pulled because the hard drive based iPods of the day weren't having 100% stability with the hard drives inside. So it would be a bad idea to have your iPod carry around all your irreplacable data when there is a chance that just dropping the iPod could destroy it. Now Apple have significantly large flash based iPods (big enough to support a home directory.) So the idea is back on the table without the fear

      • Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Lussarn (105276) on Thursday October 12 2006, @04:39AM (#16405597)
        This is straight from the patent:

        A few sophisticated users have modified operation of existing operating systems, such as Mac OS X, to provide some portability to their user account from a work computer to a home computer. This requires specialized software tools to manipulate and modify the data structures for a user account in a database (e.g., netinfo database). Armed with such specialized tools, a very sophisticated user would first establish a local user account on the multi-user computer (work computer), and then use the specialized tools to edit the location of the default user directory, such that it is made to reside on an external storage device. Then, at the other location where a multi-user computer (home computer) is to be used by the same user, a user account would be again established on such a machine, and then using special tools to render the user identifier the same as that which the work computer used when creating the user account at the work computer.

        So basically they say that prior art do exist. They even admit (in the fscking patent application!) "a few sophisticated users" have already done this, and now they want to steal that work and patent it. Isn't that great.

        These modifications to the multi-user computers are not intended modifications and thus tend to compromise the reliability of the operation of the multi-user computers.

        This would translate to "if something isn't invented by Apple it doesn't count as prior art".

        Further, the required specialized tools, although available, are neither well documented nor user-friendly.

        But they do exists, as you admit in your application. This looks like the kind of bullshit these companies puts in EULAs to make them stand up better against the laws, with the difference that this is a patent application and now it's used to stand up better to prior art.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rjstanford (69735)
          That's because you don't (or at least you're not supposed to) patent a concept. You patent a process. They're patenting a much smoother, more seamless process. That's allowable, and is actually what patents were originally intended to support.

  • = instant rootkit! (Score:4, Funny)

    by dolphinling (720774) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:41PM (#16401059) Homepage Journal

    Wheee, I'll put my root account on my ipod and then I can take over any box I want! Woohoo!

    Except wait. I don't run OSX. I run Linux. And I don't have an ipod.

    Oh well.

  • Prior art? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SIGBUS (8236) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:42PM (#16401063) Homepage
    Such functionality is already available in Knoppix [knoppix.org]. Not only can you store your configuration and updates on a USB thumb drive or HD, but the OS itself is portable, too.

    • Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lmpeters (892805) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:56PM (#16401239)

      I think the idea here is that the home directory is mirrored on the internal hard disk AND an external device of some kind. Then again, I think InterMezzo [inter-mezzo.org] has prior art on that. So this may seem like a novel idea for your average PC user, but it's not novel enough to warrant a patent.

      Of course, it's not like the USPTO hasn't ever issued a patent on something that should never have been patentable...

    • I dunno, I've been doing that with Mac OS X since 2001, when the first iPod was released.

      In other words, I could install both the OS or keep my user account on the iPod HDD. In comparison Knoppix has only been around since 2002, hasn't it?
    • This patent was actually filed back in 2002 and was slated for OS X Panther but was pulled for whatever reason. It's not uncommon for a patent to take years to be granted, hence the term "patent pending."

        • Almost every PC bios used in the last 3 or 4 years supports booting from USB.

          Not in my experience. Some claim to but don't do it corrently (or consistently). Some will boot USB memory stick, but not a disk, for example. It is hit an miss.

          Even if this 1/3 number you claim was correct, there are still 10s of millions more PC's in the world capable of booting from USB then there are Macs that can boot from USB. Meaning if you walk around and pick any computer you see at random (MAC or PC), you will find mag

  • Hmm...doesnt windows have this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dontbflat (994444) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:42PM (#16401071) Homepage
    This sure sounds a lot like romming profiles on windows. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but thats just my take on it.
    • I dunno, but when I play musical chairs with various hardware pieces and build myself a new computer with a fresh Windows installation, I never seem to have any trouble just copying the entire folder from Documents and Settings over to the new installation. As long as I install the same programs, things always have worked just fine. Heck, the HKCU part of the registry comes with the user profile as well, so I don't have to re-customize the way I like things.

    • Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mr_matticus (928346) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:57PM (#16401253)
      Roaming profiles is a synchronization mess unless the profiles are server-managed. I've never really seen roaming profiles successfully employed outside of the corporate environment. Sure, you and I are capable of handling it, but the devil's in the details, as they say.

      If Apple pulls this off, it will be seamless and invisible and mostly foolproof--three adjectives you'll never hear associated with roaming profiles.

  • So when... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quaoar (614366) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:43PM (#16401083)
    ...does Apple release their 5TB iPod to help make my porn collection mobile? Or am I going to have to carry around a backpack full of them?

  • Feature removed from 10.3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bubba451 (779167) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:44PM (#16401087)

    This was actually once promised and even advertised as part of 10.3 "Panther" and then was inexplicably removed. Here was the marketing blurb:

    Home away from home

    Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands or in your pocket? You can. Panther's Home on iPod feature lets you store your home directory - files, folders, apps - on your iPod (or any FireWire hard drive) and take it with you wherever you go. When you find yourself near a Panther-equipped Mac, just plug in the iPod, log in, and you're "home," no matter where you happen to be. And when you return to your home computer, you can synchronize any changes you've made to your files by using File Sync, which automatically updates offline changes to your home directory.

    Mac Rumors [macrumors.com] has some of the history.

    • Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands?

      I know that I can carry my entire genome in the palm of my hand... about 15,000,000 copies of it. Beat that!

    • Re:Feature removed from 10.3 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NatasRevol (731260) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @06:40PM (#16401763) Journal
      At the time, according to some, the real problem was the hard drive of the iPod it isn't/wasn't designed to be used as a real HD, running for hours continuously. Hence the cache and spin up/spin down. Yeah, it saves on battery life, but it also saves the HD life.

      But I still put OS X, drive utils & my home dir there. Very nice if you have accounts on your work & home mac. And my iPod is still going 4 yrs later, so I guess it wasn't too hard, or I got lucky.

      • Absolutely correct (Score:5, Informative)

        by mbessey (304651) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @08:30PM (#16402857) Homepage Journal
        The original iPod hard drives (from the 5 and 10 GB models) had a very short guaranteed run time. That wasn't a problem for the iPod as a music player, or for occasional file transfer, since the drive was turned off 90% or more of the time. OS X likes to write to the home directory frequently, though, so "Portable Home Directories" (as they were known at the time) had the potential to wear out the iPod's hard drive very quickly (a matter of weeks or months).

        It turns out that the ACTUAL run time to failure for those drives was typically much longer than promised, so lots of folks have had success with using them as "live" drives. I have no idea what the specs on the current generation of iPod hard drives are, but I'd bet they're considerably more durable.

        Hey, what do you know - Toshiba has published the specifications for the original 5GB iPod drive online:
        http://www3.toshiba.co.jp/storage/english/spec/hdd /mk5002.htm#relia [toshiba.co.jp]

        That page claims a "product life" of "5 years or 20,000 POH (Power-On-Hours)". 20,000 hours is just over 2.25 years of continuous operation. Given that you can get a 2-year warranty for an iPod through AppleCare these days, that doesn't sound like a very good risk.

        I don't happen to have a copy of the original spec sheet we got with the first-generation drives, but my recollection is that the quoted life span was much shorter - short enough that warranty returns for worn-out drives was a real concern if they were kept running all the time, even with the shorter warranties offered at the time (anybody else remember 90-day iPod warranties?).

        Of course, for Flash devices (like those in the Shuffle and Nano) the lifetime is specified in terms of a certain number of write operations, rather than total time "turned on". The expected lifetime for an iPod Shuffle used as a home directory is probably very very long - dozens of years.

  • They are waiting for the right time.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by d0n quix0te (304783) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:45PM (#16401119)
    ... to turn on a new business model. I am pretty sure that Apple is waiting for two things before they release this feature. First, next generation EFI based PCs and second for 8GB flash memory to come down in pricing.

    This way, you could safely run OS X off the portable device (mini-hard drives in iPods are not meant to take repeated read/writes...). Apple will then make a business of selling a 'home to go' device that you can take with you and plug into any next gen PC. Voila! Instant access to all your Apps and files.

    This way they can make up any lost sales of OS X/Mac by selling us a portable device.

    -S

  • In the 90's (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LennyDotCom (26658) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @05:56PM (#16401243) Homepage
    I used to have an external SCSI HD that I booted from on my mac. Back then I could plug it in to any Mac and boot to my Desktop with all my software I thought that was so awsome. Someone had a boot problen or what ever I just plugged in my HD booted then fixed it.

    I life was so easy then

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by eclectic4 (665330)
      "I used to have an external SCSI HD that I booted from on my mac. Back then I could plug it in to any Mac and boot to my Desktop with all my software I thought that was so awsome. Someone had a boot problen or what ever I just plugged in my HD booted then fixed it. I life was so easy then"

      I don't understand this statement, or why it was modded up. Go out and buy a 100 GB Firelite (or any external FW drive, FireLites can just fit in your pocket and are bus powered meaning no external power whatsoeve

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 (641858)
        Why just the home directory? Why not put an entire OS install in a VM and carry that around with you? I saw a demo last year by a guy from IBM doing that. He kept his OS and local files on a Xen image on a USB flash drive. It would resume state when he plugged it into a machine and if there was an Internet connection it could even establish a VPN connection back home and mount a remote share. When he suspended the VM, he didn't just take his documents with him, he took his entire machine state.
  • Amazing. To bad nobody thought of that 20 years ago.

    Oh wait.
      • It would be fairly simple to create a PAM module and daemon that, when detecting a USB device with certain information on it (say a passwd file), could mount that disk in /home/thatuser (overriding file permissions so that all items are owned by that user and nodev, nosuid), and allow that user to log in. It would not take any more modifications than that to make any Linux or BSD system be capable of doing roaming profiles on a removable drive. Quick, someone implement it!
  • .mac provides some of this functionality. I have most of what I do on a daily basis on .mac, so it does not matter what machine I use. My mail, documents, etc can be easily synched between machines. This also means that I have three copies of everything, which is not as good as backup, but it pretty good. I can even sync my safari and camino bookmarks

    What is missing is my library files, x-windows config and the like. So much is stuffed into the library files, mine is over 2GB, that I don't see how I c

  • This is brilliant. I can imagine some sort of program which could archive [gnu.org] all your files and configuration information, and then.. perhaps some sort of compression [gnu.org] could be applied to allow for greater portability. Great idea! Someone should try implementing this for Linux.

  • Can already do this with Yellow Dog Linux (Score:3, Informative)

    by billdar (595311) * < y a p> on Wednesday October 11 2006, @06:12PM (#16401403) Homepage
    Put a complete Yellow Dog Linux install on your iPod [linuxjournal.com] and reboot any PPC mac into your entire OS with all your settings and applications. When on the move, it still plays your music and can be used with iTunes.

    Even IBM does this [slashdot.org] to recover dead PC's.

    Does this mean I can declare prior art? Get my lawyer on the bat-phone

  • Thats what it sounds like to me, except you can store it on a removable device instead of a server.

    Still, would be nice to have, if they can solve the massive security risks.

  • evil (Score:3, Informative)

    by oohshiny (998054) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @06:46PM (#16401821)
    This feature has been available under UNIX for more than two decades. For Apple to patent this is really evil.

  • From 2002? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by catdevnull (531283) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @08:47PM (#16403015)
    From TFA:

    Inventors: Bowers; Robert T (Cupertino, CA), Ko; Steve (San Francisco, CA)
    Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA)
    Appl. No.: 10/304,291
    Filed: November 25, 2002

    Maybe I don't know how to read these legal eagle documents and stuff, but it seems like this was filed some time ago. I don't think this has much bearing to 10.5 when this was filed when 10.2 was fresh on the shelves.

  • Unix 10 years ago? (Score:3, Informative)

    by katorga (623930) on Wednesday October 11 2006, @11:21PM (#16404179)
    Hmmm. NIS, automounter, and NFS file servers for /home. I could log into any system I was allowed to and my home dir, files, .profiles and X windows config was just as I left it.

    Hmmm. Active Directory roaming profiles.

    Hmmm. Linux, LDAP, automounter, and a remote home directory.

    Hmmmm. Knoppix + ~/user on a flashdrive.

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