Network blues

[Lukas Engqvist]

With Adobe CS5 we needed to uppgrade a few machines, some hardware and some software. I find myself once again with the dilema of Windows servers and NAS devices not accepting the mac loggon strategy.
IN OSX 10.6 the OS tries to logg on as guest directly, somehow I can see some folders, but I am not getting the correct mounting point. OSX seems to always get to the root, not the users assigned share point. There must be some way to deal with this?

Also I am confused that OSX seems to logg on differenty to a SMB than windows, the names and the search paths are different. There used to be a way to deal with this but how the URI handling is reworked. How do I map the URI in OSX?

[Shawn]

Hi Lukas

It's tough to compare strategies with the huge variety of equipment and protocols in use out there. Here are a few things we've tried for our Windows servers and NAS boxes.

For connecting to specific servers and mount points, I tend to avoid the network window completely and use connect to server from the Go menu (Command K). It seems to be way more reliable.

The URI syntax for an SMB server is [replace bracketed items with your settings]:
SMB://[WORKGROUP;username:Password]@[server or ip address]/[path to mountpoint separated by slashes]

Workgroup can be optional depending on your network, and if you want to leave off the username or password, just leave that part blank but fill out the rest.

smb://username:@127.1.1.1/folder/mountpoint

When I set up a new machine I go to server and fill out the normal settings for that user then click on the + button to add them to the Go to Server settings. That way they can hit Cmd-K, click on the setting and go.

I've also set up a few applescripts that either can be launched at startup or can be saved as apps in the doc for the user to click on.

tell application "Finder"
try
mount volume "smb://workgroup;username:Password@127.1.1.1/folder/mountpoint"
end try
end tell

These can be nested for multiple servers, but make sure to put each one in it's own try and end try block so one missing server doesn't make the script stall.

Hope this helps
Shawn