Some of the main topics in this chapter are
Services for Macintosh (SfM) is a set of Windows NT Server services included in the base Server product that provide AppleTalk-based file and print services to your Macintosh clients. These services enable your Windows NT Server to look and act (to the Macintosh) like an AppleShare server. Additionally, SfM provides some value-added features such as Microsoft's encrypted user authentication and the capability to enable your Macintosh clients to print to non-PostScript printers through a special print language translator. This chapter describes how to install and configure SfM and helps you manage these services to build a seamless Macintosh-Windows NT integration.
SfM is really two main Windows NT services--File Server for Macintosh and Print Server for Macintosh. These two services, along with the AppleTalk network protocol, form the core of the SfM product. After you've installed these services, you will use new and existing Windows NT utilities (such as Server Manager) to manage the services, create new Macintosh-accessible volumes (MAVs), and control access to data on those volumes. This section describes the capabilities of SfM and the steps you go through to install the service and get up and running with your Macintosh clients.
SfM is only available as an installation option with Windows NT Server. SfM provides the following services to your Macintosh clients:
SfM is only available as an install option on Windows NT Server. As such, you plan carefully what kind of server you'll install the service on. If you need to provide Macintosh connectivity for a large number of clients (more than 100), you should consider putting SfM on either a member server or a well-equipped backup domain controller (BDC). Like any service, SfM consumes more system resources, especially memory and disk resources. If you're creating several large MAVs, be aware of limitations within SfM. MAVs have the restriction that they can only be defined on an NTFS partition. If you don't have NTFS installed on your Windows NT Server, you need to convert an existing partition or create a new one as NTFS.
NOTE: MAVs can only be created on NTFS partitions. You need at least one such partition on the server where you install SfM.
The service uses an area in the server's memory called the paged pool to cache file and directory information on a MAV. The amount of paged pool memory required depends upon the length of the file or directory name. In addition, the size of the paged pool memory area is calculated dynamically at startup and is based on the amount of physical memory installed on the server. For example, on a server equipped with 64M, the default paged pool size is about 54M. A 32M server defaults to about 30M of paged pool. Regardless of the physical memory amount, the paged pool will never grow beyond 192M. Now, for each file and directory on your MAV, paged pool memory is used as shown in Table 37.1.
| Length of File or Directory Name | Bytes Used by File Entry | Bytes Used by Directory Entry |
| 1-8 bytes | 128 | 168 |
| 9-12 bytes | 136 | 176 |
| 13-20 bytes | 152 | 192 |
| 21-31 bytes | 176 | 216 |
Therefore, when deciding how much memory your SfM server needs, you can estimate the number and length of Mac-accessible files and volumes you need to support, calculate how much paged pool memory you need, and thus derive a recommended memory configuration. For example, if you have a MAV with 500 subdirectories and 20,000 files all with name lengths between 21 and 31 characters, you would consume ((500x216)+ (20,000x176))=36.3M of paged pool. Given this fact, you would easily consume all paged pool memory on a 32M system. Even a 64M system might be strained, considering other processes or structures such as the registry might need their share of paged pool, as well.
TIP: If you plan to support a large number of Macintosh clients, consider placing them on one or more dedicated SfM servers that are not performing other functions. Also consider establishing a file- and folder-naming guideline to prevent excessive use of server memory. Finally, be conservative with the server's RAM configuration. If 64M seems adequate, plan for 96M. This will cover unexpected user behavior that might cause your servers to run out of resources.
SfM is added just like other network services, such as WINS or IIS. You will need your Windows NT Server CD-ROM or distribution files to complete the install. Follow these steps to install the SfM service:
You use the Microsoft AppleTalk Protocol Properties dialog box to configure AppleTalk properties after installing SfM.
Understanding AppleTalk Zones
AppleTalk uses the concept of zones to logically separate AppleTalk resources. You can group Macintosh servers, clients, and printers into zones with distinct names such as ArtDeptZone. Zones enable users to more easily browse and connect to groups of network resources from their client machines. In LocalTalk-based networks, you can only have one zone per physical segment. Using Ethernet, Token Ring, or FDDI, however, you can have multiple zones on a single segment.
After you install SfM, you will require a number of additional components--both new ones and updates to existing utilities--that enable you to manage the service. A MacFile applet will be added to Control Panel. In additional, MacFile menu items will be added in both Server Manager and File Manager. The Add Printer Wizard will have a new option for connecting to AppleTalk-attached printers, and a new command-line utility--called macfile--will be available for performing scripted changes to SfM. See the section "Utilities for Managing the Service" for a description of what these utilities can do.
By default, a Mac-accessible volume (MAV) is created on the first available NTFS partition (usually your system partition if that is NTFS). This folder is named Microsoft UAM Volume and contains a subfolder named AppleShare (see Figure 37.2).
MAVs are typically created on the first available NTFS partition.
Within the AppleShare folder are two files. The first, called MS UAM, is the Microsoft authentication module that can optionally be installed by your Mac clients to provide encrypted authentication. The second file is a readme file for the MS UAM that describes how to install it (see the section "Installing the Microsoft UAM" for a more detailed discussion on using the MS UAM).
The Microsoft UAM volume is the only MAV created when you install SfM. You have to manually configure other volumes and printers as needed.
When you install SfM, several new Registry keys are created in the HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE hive. The path to these keys is:
They keys are named MacFile, MacPrint, and MacSrv and contain the configuration information for file, print, and SfM server services (see Figure 37.3).
SfM adds a number of Registry keys during installation.
SfM supports AppleTalk Phase II networking and routing on your Windows NT server. AppleTalk is a protocol that was developed by Apple for providing basic peer-to-peer networking services in the very first Macintosh computers. AppleTalk Phase I provided a network layer protocol, usually running on a Media Access Control (MAC) layer protocol called LocalTalk. LocalTalk supports transfer rates of up to a relatively slow 230Kbps. Phase I AppleTalk had a relatively small address space, restricting the size of AppleTalk-based Internetworks significantly. AppleTalk Phase II was developed to increase the size of the AppleTalk address space and provide backward-compatibility with old Phase I networks.
The AppleTalk protocol suite provides most of the basic services for networking your Macintosh computers. Some of these services include dynamic node addressing similar to Novell's IPX protocol, name binding for associating Mac computer names with AppleTalk addresses, and a routing update protocol that keeps nodes on a Mac Internet informed about available network segments and how to route traffic to those segments.
SfM provides support for all of these AppleTalk Phase II networking features. Most of them are behind-the-scenes features, but you can manually configure your SfM server as an AppleTalk router, using either a seed or non-seed configuration (described in the later section "Seed and Non-Seed Routers")
AppleTalk Network Addressing. AppleTalk Phase II addressing uses network number ranges to represent a given physical segment. For example, 5-7 could be an AppleTalk Phase II address for a single segment. Each number in the range can support up to 253 nodes, so in this example, 5-7 can support 253*3 nodes, or 759.
Nodes are dynamically addressed when you start up an AppleTalk-enabled device. The process is as follows:
2. If another node has the number, it responds with a directed packet to
the requester, indicating that number is in use. The requester then picks another
node number and repeats the broadcast query.
3. If no response comes back, the device assumes the node number for the period of time it is up and running.
A node number is unique on a given segment, and a full network address for a node is composed of its AppleTalk Phase II network range (10-12) and its 8-bit node number (15).
TIP: When you're designing an addressing scheme for your AppleTalk Internetwork, you should conserve address space as much as possible. For example, if a given network segment has only 100 Mac nodes on it, you can use a range of 15-15. This means that the network 15-15 can accommodate up to 253 nodes. If you have a network segment with 500 Mac nodes, however, you need to use a bigger range, say 10-11, which encompasses two 253-node address ranges.
In practice, the technological limits of various MAC layer topologies such as Ethernet restrict the effective size of a given shared segment. For example, at more than 100 nodes, you'll likely experience excessive Ethernet collisions and have to limit the size of that segment from further growth. As new switching technology emerges, however, it's possible to have 500 or even 1,000 nodes on a given physical segment. In that case, using ranges of AppleTalk addresses is necessary.
Figure 37.4 shows an example of a AppleTalk Internetwork, containing a Windows NT server running SfM and supporting three multiple physical segments by installing three NICs in the server. The SfM server provides AppleTalk routing between the segments. Note that it is perfectly acceptable to have PC clients co-existing on the same physical segment as Mac clients. They might be using other protocols such as TCP/IP or IPX/SPX in addition to the AppleTalk protocol used by the Macs.
This is an example of an AppleTalk Internetwork, with Windows NT Server providing routing between segments
Seed and Non-Seed Routers. AppleTalk routers are devices that provide routing information at the Network layer for an AppleTalk Internetwork. They are similar to IP or IPX routers in functionality and enable you to segment groups of devices for purposes of broadcast control and even security-based filtering. AppleTalk routers are further distinguished as either seed or non-seed routers. A seed router is one that broadcasts both the network address and AppleTalk zone for a given segment. All AppleTalk devices connected to this segment use this seed information to determine their network and zone identities. You can have multiple AppleTalk routers connected to a given segment, but there must be one and only one seed router for every segment in a network. Non-seed routers do not provide routing information, but simply listen for updates from other seed routers and use that information to set their network addresses and zone information.
SfM enables your Windows NT server to be either a seed or a non-seed router. When you installed SfM, you saw the Routing page of the Microsoft AppleTalk Protocol Properties dialog box. This page is where you can configure your Windows NT server to provide either seed or non-seed routing. In Figure 37.5, if you mark the Enable Routing check box, you tell SfM that this server will act as a non-seed AppleTalk router on the chosen Network Adapter.
Select Enable Routing to configure AppleTalk routing in SfM.
If you mark the Use this Router to Seed the Network check box, you are enabling this SfM server to be a seed router. You need to then provide a Phase II network range in the From and To boxes. If there are other zones connected to this network adapter, you can select the Get Zones button to enumerate them. You can also create a new zone by selecting the Add button, and entering a new zone name. In Figure 37.6, I have set up this server as a seed router for network 2-4 and created a new zone called ArtDept_Zone.
In this case, Windows NT server is configured as an AppleTalk seed router.
NOTE: Despite the message that says you only have to restart AppleTalk for routing changes to take effect, you need to restart your Windows NT server any time you make changes to the AppleTalk routing parameters.
This section discusses the use of SfM from the Mac client point of view. You look at what's required on the Mac, how to install the MS UAM, and how to authenticate to a Windows NT server running SfM. Finally, you look at how easy it is to mount and use MAVs and printers from your Mac clients.
Macintosh System Requirements. From the Macintosh client's point of view, nothing much has to change to be able to connect to and use Windows NT server-based files and printers. Your Macintosh must be running a minimum of MacOS version 6.07 or above (all 7.x versions are supported, as well) and must be physically connected via local segment, router, or bridge to the Windows NT server NIC with AppleTalk bound to it. Unless you're installing the MS UAM, you won't need any other software to connect to SfM resources. You will use the existing Mac Chooser utility to connect to these resources.
Installing the Microsoft UAM. By default, when your Mac connects to a Windows NT Server SfM resource, the Apple UAM--included with the Mac--handles the logon process. This logon process passes your username and password as clear text (in other words, not encrypted) to the server. This creates a potential security problem because the logon process can be easily captured with a network analyzer.
Included with SfM is the Microsoft UAM. The MS UAM provides encrypted Windows NT security to the Mac during the logon process. To install the MS UAM on your Mac, follow these steps from your Mac client:
2. In the Chooser dialog box that appears, you see a list of available AppleShare servers for your zone. Select your NT Server and click OK.
3. Log on to the SfM server by using an existing Windows NT user name and password. At this point, you will be authenticating to the server by using the Apple UAM.
4. The next dialog box presents a list of Mac-accessible folders on the server. Select the Microsoft UAM Volume and press OK. The folder will be mounted and appear on your Mac desktop as a disk icon, with the name of the folder.
5. Double-click the disk icon to open the folder. You'll see a subfolder named AppleShare folder.
6. Open the AppleShare folder on the Windows NT server and drag the file called MS UAM to the AppleShare folder within your Mac's System folder. If you don't have an AppleShare folder inside the System folder, then create one before copying the file.
7. Restart your Mac for the new MS UAM to be available.
The next time the Mac client wants to connect to the SfM server, it has the choice of using the Apple UAM or the MS UAM.
In addition, you can force Mac clients to use the MS UAM by marking the Require Microsoft Authentication check box with either the Attributes option of the MacFile Control Panel applet or with Server Manager in the Attributes section of the MacFile menu choice.
Authenticating to a Windows NT Server. After the MS UAM is loaded, you can perform encrypted authentication to your SfM servers. It's important to understand how authentication works, however, to ensure that your users are providing the correct credentials for the folders they need access to.
Unlike a Windows NT or Windows 95 client authenticating to a Windows NT domain, when a Mac client provides a username and password to an SfM server, it is only authenticating to that particular server. If you have several servers running SfM, the user has to provide credentials for each server to which he wants to connect. There is no concept of single logon for the Mac client. Additionally, the process by which a username and password is applied to a server varies depending upon the server's function.
For example, suppose you have SfM installed on a Windows NT member server (non-domain controller) that belongs to a domain called Arts. When your Mac client presents a username and password, those credentials are first compared against the local (non-domain) security account database (SAM) residing on the member server. If those credentials do not match, then they are passed to a domain controller in the Arts domain. If the user account is not found in the Arts domain, then it's passed to any trusted domains of Arts.
Suppose that user JoeB has an account in both the local SAM for the member server and in the Arts domain. Because the local SAM is evaluated first, JoeB is authenticated by using the local account. Now, if you have assigned file permissions on the NTFS partition containing your MAVs to only the Arts domain user account for JoeB, that user will be unable to access those volumes. The easiest way to avoid these complications is for your Mac clients to authenticate by using a fully qualified username. In this example, the user enters Arts\JoeB as his username. This will explicitly authenticate him to the domain SAM and avoid passing the wrong credentials and gaining the wrong permissions. As you can imagine, it's equally important to assign NTFS file permissions to the correct user accounts.
Mounting Volumes and Printers. The process by which a Mac client accesses SfM-based file and print resources is seamlessly integrated into the Mac user experience. By using the familiar Chooser utility, the user authenticates to an SfM server and is presented with a list of available MAVs. The user has the option to mount one or more volumes by placing a mark in the check box next to the volume name and can choose to automatically mount the volume the next time the Mac is started. If this option is chosen, the user is prompted for her password to re-authenticate with the server.
NOTE: If your Mac users choose to automatically mount a volume that has been defined by the SfM administrator with a volume password, the automatic mount will fail. This is a function of the Macintosh Finder, not SfM.
There is an option on the Mac to save the passwords between logons. This, however, can present a security risk. To force users to enter their passwords each time, go to the Macfile Control Panel applet on the SfM server, or choose Attributes from the Macfile menu in Server Manager. Make sure that the Allow Workstations to Save Password check box is not marked.
NOTE: The Macintosh Finder has a limit to the number of volumes it's capable of mounting: 167 volumes. If you try to mount more than that from a Mac client, you receive an error message, indicating that an AppleShare file system error has occurred. To prevent this problem, try combining the MAVs you have created on your Windows NT servers by creating volumes at a higher level in the directory tree.
Mounting SfM printers is equally simple. Again from the Chooser, select LaserWriter to display a list of available printers. Any SfM-defined printers for the currently selected zone will appear in a list on the right side of the dialog box. You can choose one to make as your current printer by selecting it. It's important to remember, however, that because the Windows NT server is performing the spooling for any printers it has captured, you need to disable the local spooling function on each Mac client. This means turning off the Background Printing option when you select the printer you want to use in the Chooser Laserwriter dialog box (see "Creating Volumes and Printers" later in this chapter for a discussion of how to create a printer on your Windows NT server).
File Naming Issues. SfM enables both your PC and Mac clients to share the same folders and files when you define Mac-accessible folders on your Windows NT Server.
Conflicts can arise, however, due to the different file system naming limitations inherent in MacOS, Windows NT/95, and DOS-based clients. NTFS partitions support up to 256-character file names. The Mac's file system can only support up to 31 characters, however, and DOS-based clients are limited to the FAT-based 8.3 convention. This can result in confusion when DOS, Mac, and Windows NT or Windows 95 users access files on Mac-accessible folders on a Windows NT Server.
NTFS deals with both Mac and DOS limitations in the same way. If, when using a Windows NT or Windows 95 client, you store a file on a Mac-accessible folder whose file name is greater than 31 characters, SfM guarantees that NTFS represents that filename to Mac clients the same way it does for DOS-based clients. That is, the file appears to the Mac that has mounted that volume with the first six characters and then a tilde (~) and a sequential number.
For example, you might create a Word document on your Windows 95 or Windows NT client named
To the Mac or DOS-based client, this file appears on the volume as Perfor~1.doc. If you have another file named
the file is again represented to the Mac by using the first six characters, which turn out to be the same as the first document. In that case, the sequential number is incremented to prevent the previous file from being overwritten: Perfor~2.doc.
TIP: If you only have Macintosh and Windows 95 or Windows NT clients sharing files, keeping file names less than 31 characters in length--the most supported by the Mac--provides a consistent file-naming view for all clients. If you also have DOS-based clients that share these files, consider having your file-naming scheme adhere to the 8.3 limit.
File naming can also be problematic due to Macintosh's support of certain characters in its filenames that are considered illegal to Windows-based systems. For example, Macintosh supports the use of the following characters:
These characters are illegal for Windows-based clients and are even illegal for the NTFS file system. Prior to writing these illegal characters to a MAV on an NTFS partition, however, SfM converts these characters to legal Unicode equivalents.
What is Unicode?
Unicode is a type of character set supported by Windows NT and other 32-bit operating systems such as Novell NetWare. Unicode extends the 8-bit ANSI standard for representing characters to 16 bits. This provides for foreign languages that require thousands of characters, grammatical marks, and punctuations to be accommodated in a single character set. Windows 3.1x and Windows 95 clients, however, do not support the use of Unicode. For example, a file written by a Macintosh client with the name
is saved on the NTFS partition as
A Windows 95 client, which does not support Unicode, reads the filename as
and thus cannot properly open the file because that filename does not exist.
To avoid these kinds of scenarios, the easiest solution is to train your Mac users not to use illegal characters when they name and store their files on a Windows NT server. Otherwise, you'll have to rename these files from a Macintosh after they've been created if you want to share them with non-Unicode-enabled workstations.
There are several utilities you can use to manage SfM on your Windows NT server. Some of these utilities, such as Server Manager and File Manager, have overlapping functionality. The utilities can be roughly broken into three categories:
Unfortunately, Microsoft did not provide a single interface for managing SfM. Instead, you need to use a combination of new and existing utilities. The following list describes each utility and its function in managing SfM:
The MacFile Control Panel applet enables you to work with your network's security.
You can also require all Mac clients connecting to this server to use the MS UAM by marking the Require Microsoft Authentication check box.
The Server Manager enables you to configure many of the same options you do in the MacFile Control Panel applet.
File Manager is the only utility available to set Macintosh file associations for SfM.
Creator and Type Information Available for Mac Files in SfM
The Macintosh Finder uses information in the resource fork of a file to determine what application it was created with and what type of file for that application. These so-called creator and type attributes enable the Finder to display the correct application icon for a file and to locate and launch the associated application when you double-click the file. SfM provides the following type and creator information. You then can use File Manager to associate these types with any 8.3-format filename extension on your MAVs (see Table 37.2).
| Creator | Type | Comment |
| ALD3 | ALB3 | PageMaker 3.0 publication |
| ALD3 | ALT3 | PageMaker 3.0 template |
| ALD3 | TIFF | PageMaker 3.0 TIFF graphics |
| ALD4 | ALB4 | PageMaker 4.0 publication |
| ALD4 | ALT4 | PageMaker 4.0 template |
| ALD4 | TIFF | PageMaker 4.0 TIFF graphics |
| ARTZ | EPSF | Adobe Illustrator |
| FOX+ | F+DB | FoxBase Plus |
| FOXX | F+DB | FoxPro 2.0 table |
| FOXX | F+DT | FoxPro 2.0 memo |
| FOXX | F+IX | FoxPro 2.0 index |
| FOXX | FCDX | FoxPro 2.0 compound index |
| FOXX | F+PR | FoxPro 2.0 program |
| FOXX | F+RP | FoxPro 2.0 report |
| FOXX | FFRT | FoxPro 2.0 report memo |
| FOXX | F+LB | FoxPro 2.0 label |
| FOXX | FLBT | FoxPro 2.0 label memo |
| FOXX | F+FR | FoxPro 2.0 screen |
| FOXX | FSCT | FoxPro 2.0 screen memo |
| FOXX | FMNX | FoxPro 2.0 menu |
| FOXX | FMNT | FoxPro 2.0 menu memo |
| FOXX | FQPR | FoxPro 2.0 general query program |
| FOXX | FPJX | FoxPro 2.0 project |
| FOXX | FPJT | FoxPro 2.0 project memo |
| L123 | LWK3 | Lotus 1-2-3 |
| LMAN | DEXE | LMAN Executables |
| MORE | TEXT | Symantec More file |
| MSPJ | MPP | MS Project 4.0 |
| MSPJ | MPC | MS Project 4.0 calendar |
| MSPJ | MPT | MS Project 4.0 template |
| MSPJ | MPV | MS Project 4.0 view |
| MSPJ | MPW | MS Project 4.0 workspace |
| MSPJ | MPX | MS Project 4.0 Exchange file |
| MSWD | WDBN | MS Word 5.1 document |
| MSWD | TEXT | MS Word 5.1 document |
| MSWD | W6BN | MS Word 6.0 document |
| MSWD | WBN | MS Word 6.0 template |
| PPT2 | SLD2 | MS PowerPoint 2.0 |
| PPT3 | SLD3 | MS PowerPoint 3.0 |
| SIT! | SIT! | Aladdin StuffIt |
| TTXT | TEXT | Teach Text document |
| XCEL | XLS3 | MS Excel 3.0 spreadsheet |
| XCEL | XLM3 | MS Excel 3.0 macrosheet |
| XCEL | XLW3 | MS Excel 3.0 workspace |
| XCEL | XLA | MS Excel 3.0 Add-in MacroFile |
| XCEL | sLM3 | MS Excel 3.0 Template file |
| XCEL | TEXT | MS Excel 3.0 |
| XCEL | XLC3 | MS Excel 3.0 chart |
| XCEL | XLC4 | MS Excel 4.0 chart |
| XCEL | XLM4 | MS Excel 4.0 macrosheet |
| XCEL | XLW4 | MS Excel 4.0 workspace |
| XCEL | XLA | MS Excel 4.0 Add-in MacroFile |
| XCEL | XLT | MS Excel 4.0 template file |
| XCEL | XLS4 | MS Excel 4.0 spreadsheet |
Next, examine the process of creating MAVs and printers on your Windows NT server. You can create new MAVs by using either Server Manager, File Manager, or the macfile command-line utility. The following steps take you through the creation of a volume used for user home directories:
2. From the Server Manager menu, choose MacFile, Volumes to bring up the Macintosh-Accessible Volumes dialog box.
3. Click the Create Volume button. The Create Macintosh-Accessible Volume dialog box appears. Enter the name of the volume as your Mac clients will see it. In this example, the name is home. Next, enter the path to the NTFS folder you created in Step 1 (see Figure 37.11). If you want to password-protect this folder, provide a password here. This will be in addition to the user authentication process the user goes through to authenticate to the server.
Create a Mac-accessible volume by using the Server Manager utility.
Macintosh permissions interact with NTFS file permissions in a similar way to Windows NT Share permissions and NTFS file permissions. That is, the effective rights for accessing a given file or folder are an intersection of Macintosh Permissions and NTFS file permissions. This means that if a MAV is created on a folder with NTFS file permissions of Full Control for Everyone, but the Macintosh permissions on that MAV are "See Files" for Everyone, then the effective permissions on the MAV are "See Files" for Everyone. Macintosh permissions are described further in the next section, "Setting Volume and File Permissions."
5. Click OK to complete creation of the new volume. You will see the new volume appear in the Macintosh-Accessible Volumes dialog box. Click Close when finished, or choose Properties if you want to choose one of the properties for the volume.
6. To remove a volume, highlight the volume name from the Macintosh-Accessible Volumes dialog box, and choose Remove Volume.
There are two ways to create a Mac-accessible printer. As described in the earlier section "Overview of Services for Macintosh," you can either capture an AppleTalk-connected PostScript printer residing on your Mac network or create a definition for a printer attached to one of the serial or parallel ports on your SfM server.
In the latter case, the printer does not have to support PostScript. When a PostScript job reaches a server with SfM installed, a print processor called SFMPSPRT recognizes that the PostScript job is destined for a non-PostScript printer. The job is sent to a process called the Microsoft TrueImage Raster Image Processor (RIP). The RIP then transforms the PostScript job into a series of monochrome bitmaps. These bitmaps have a maximum print resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi). These 300 dpi monochrome bitmaps are then sent to the locally attached printer, using the defined print driver. This means that no matter what the resolution or color of the PostScript print job, it will never be more than 300 dpi monochrome on the locally attached printer.
To support this functionality, you need to also have installed Microsoft's TrueType Font Pack version 1 on your SfM server. Without this font pack, your print output might appear jagged, and some fonts originating on the Macintosh client might not print correctly at all.
To create a locally attached printer, you define the printer as you normally would for your PC clients. The printer appears in the Mac Chooser when your Mac clients connect to the SfM server where the printer is connected.
The Macintosh platform supports a different set of permissions than Windows NT does. The Macintosh does not support the concept of file permissions, but rather only applies permissions at the folder level. If there are any NTFS file permissions in place on Mac-accessible files, these will be enforced by SfM, even though the Mac clients will not recognize this level of security. For example, if a Mac permission on a given folder enables anyone to make changes to files within that folder, but an NTFS permission has marked the file read-only for that user, the user will not be able to change the file. The general rule is that the most restrictive set of permissions applies to a given folder or file.
There are four types of Mac permissions:
These types can be applied against an individual user, a user group, or all users (Everyone). To set these permissions, you can use the Server Manager, File Manager, or macfile command-line utilities. From the Server Manager menu, choose Macfile, Volumes to bring up the Macintosh-Accessible Volumes dialog box. Highlight the volume with permissions you want to change and select Properties. Select the Permissions button to bring up the Directory Permissions dialog box (see Figure 37.12).
From this dialog box, you can change Macintosh style permissions for the selected folder.
The user who created the folder is considered the Owner. The group to which the owner belongs is the Primary group. All other users are covered with the Everyone (or World group, as its referred to on the Mac) permission set. If you make changes to the permissions and want them to be applied recursively--that is, to all folders underneath the selected volume--mark the Replace Permissions on Subdirectories check box. If you want to apply the Cannot Move, Rename, or Delete Permission to All Users of this Volume, mark that check box. Click OK to apply the permission changes.
You can use the macfile command-line utility to apply permissions and make owner or group changes to individual folders underneath a given volume. To perform a permission change, the macfile utility uses an 11-digit rights mask that corresponds to each possible permission. A 1 indicates the permission is enabled. A 0 indicates disabled. Each position of the mask is:
Second digit: See Folders for Owner
Third digit: Make Changes for Owner
Fourth digit: See Files for Primary Group
Fifth digit: See Folders for Primary Group
Sixth digit: Make Changes for Primary Group
Seventh digit: See Files for Everyone (World)
Eighth digit: See Folders for Everyone (World)
Ninth digit: Make Changes for Everyone (World)
Tenth digit: Folder Cannot Be Moved, Renamed or Deleted
Eleventh digit: Apply These Changes Recursively
For example, to change the permissions on the joeb subfolder within the home volume so that only Owner and Primary group have the capability to see files and folders and make changes, you can use the following command:
macfile directory /path:e:\home\joeb /permissions:11111100011
There are a number of limitations related to the use of SfM. Some of these are related to the MacOS, the Finder, or AppleTalk networking. Some are related to SfM itself. This section looks at some of the more common limitations and possible workarounds for each.
Incorrect Reporting of Free Volume Space. Macintosh clients running a version of MacOS prior to 7.5 can only recognize disk partitions that are less than or equal to 2,018M in size. If you have defined SfM volumes on a disk partition that is larger than this amount, you might find that the Mac clients running older MacOS versions report incorrect amounts of free disk space. This is because they only see the first 2G of the partition. In version 7.5, the volume size supported was raised to 4G. You will have to either create smaller Mac-accessible partitions or upgrade all of your Mac clients to OS version 7.5.
Limitation on the Number and Length of Volumes. In the section "Mounting Volumes and Printers," you learned that a Mac client cannot mount more than 167 volumes due to limitations in the Finder. Windows NT Server can create as many Mac volumes as you need and is generally only limited by memory. However, the Mac Finder allocates a memory structure that is 50x27 bytes long to keep track of volumes available on an AppleShare server. This means you can have up to 50 volumes whose names are 27 bytes long on a server. If you exceed the size of this array by defining a greater number volumes with long names, however, the server can actually stop responding to the clients. To prevent this from happening on a server in which you have defined more than 50 volumes, keep the length of volume names as they appear to the Mac as small as possible. For example, choose apps instead of applications, or acctg instead of accounting, for volume names.
Excessive Network Traffic. Macs running MacOS 7.x have a feature that automatically updates the folders and files of each mounted volume on a periodic basis. This feature ensures that changes occurring on the volumes are constantly refreshed to the client. By default, for the first 10 volumes mounted by a client, a refresh request is sent to the server for each mounted volume every 10 seconds. After 10 volumes, the refresh interval equals the number of mounted volumes. For example, if a client has mounted 15 volumes, it will request a refresh from each of them every 15 seconds. If a server is busy, it might take a while to respond to a refresh request.
For the client with 15 volumes, if it takes three seconds to refresh the first 13 volumes and then--due to server delays--another 10 seconds for the last two volumes, this equals 13 seconds. The counter on the Mac is based on when the refresh requests begin. So, the next refresh request will come two seconds after the last one completes.
As you can imagine, on a large Mac internetwork with many clients and many mounted volumes, this refresh traffic can quickly consume network and server bandwidth. One option for Mac clients experiencing this problem is a third-party product named Less Talk, produced by Information Presentation Technologies (see their Web site at http://www.iptech.com). This product enables you to configure the refresh interval on your Mac clients.
Mac Find File Causes an SfM Server to Become Busy. The
Find File function, available from the Finder menu, uses a feature called CatSearch
to search a given volume or folder. If you're searching an SfM server volume, CatSearch
is actually executed at the server, thus allowing the client to perform other tasks.
While a given volume is being searched by CatSearch, other users are locked out of
that volume for the duration of the search. If you have many clients performing Find
File on SfM volumes with many files and directories, it can cause the server to become
so busy that no clients can access the volume for extended periods of time. This
is especially true if those Find File requests are started at the root of a volume
with many subfolders.
The best solution is to train users on proper use of Find File. Find File requests should not be started at the root, if possible. Additionally, keeping volumes of reasonable size without a large number of subfolders decreases the chances that a root search will lock out users for too long.
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.