Bottom: No matter which method you use to connect to a shared folder or disk, its icon shows up in the Sidebar.. When the "Connect to the file server" box appears, you're supposed to spe
Trang 113.3 Accessing Shared Files
So far in this chapter, you've read about setting up a Mac so that people at other
computers can access its files
Now comes the payoff: sitting at another computer and connecting to the one you set up There are two ways to go about it: You can use Leopard's new, streamlined Sidebar network, or you can use the older, more flexible Connect to Server command The
following pages cover both methods
13.3.1 Connection Method A: Use the Sidebar
Suppose, then, that you're seated in front of your Mac, and you want to see the files on another Mac on the network Proceed like this:
1 Open any Finder window
In the Shared category of the Sidebar at the left side of the window, icons for all the computers on the network appear See Figure 13-8
Tip: The same Sidebar items show up in the Save and Open dialog boxes of your
programs, too, making the entire network available to you for opening and saving files
If you don't see a certain Mac's icon here, it might be turned off, it might not be on the network, or it might have File Sharing turned off (And if you don't see any computers at all in the Sidebar, then your computer might not be on the network
Or maybe you've turned off the checkboxes for "Connected Servers" and "Bonjour Computers" in Finder Preferences Sidebar.)
Figure 13-8 Macs often appear in the Sidebar with model-specific names (MacBook, iMac, and so on) Other computers (like PCs) have generic blue monitors When you click All in the Sidebar, you see both the icons of individual computers and the icons of network chunks (like AppleTalk zones
and Windows workgroups)
Trang 2POWER USERS' CLINIC What You Can See
What You Can See Precisely which other folders you can see on the remote
Mac depend on what kind of account you have there: Guest, Standard, or
Administrator (See the previous chapter.)
If you're using the Guest account, you can see only the Public and Drop Box
folders The rest of the Mac is invisible and off limits to you
If you have a Standard account, you can see other people's Public and Drop Box folders, plus your own Home folder
(Of course, those are just the factory settings; somebody could have turned on
sharing for additional folders.)
If you're an administrator, you get to see icons for the account-holder folders
and the hard drive itself to which you're connecting In fact, you even get to see the names of any other disks connected to that Mac
If you, O lucky administrator, open the hard drive, you'll discover that you also the freedom to see and manipulate the contents of the Applications, Desktop,
Library, and Users Shared folders
You can even see what folders are in other users' Home folders, although you
can't open them or put anything into them
Finally, as described in the previous chapter, there's the root user This account has complete freedom to move or delete any file or folder anywhere, including critical system files that could disable your Mac Section 16.9 has the details
If there are more than six icons in the Sidebar, or if you're on a corporate-style network that has sub-chunks like nodes or workgroups, you also see an icon called All Click it to see the full list of network entities that your Mac can see: not just individual Mac, Windows, and Unix machines, but also any "network
neighborhoods" (limbs of your network tree) For example, you may see the
Trang 3names of AppleTalk zones (clusters of machines, as found in big companies and universities)
Or, if you're trying to tap into a Windows machine, open the icon representing the workgroup (computer cluster) that contains the machine you want In small office networks, it's usually called MSHOME or WORKGROUP In big corporations, these workgroups can be called almost anything —as long as it's no more than 12 letters long with no punctuation (Thanks, Microsoft.)
If you do see icons for workgroups or other network "zones," double-click your way until you're seeing the icons for individual computers
Note: If you're a network nerd, you may be interested to note that Mac OS X 10.5
can "see" servers that use the SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, and WebDAV protocols running on Mac OS X Server, AppleShare, Unix, Linux, Novell NetWare,
Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista servers But Sidebar reveals only the shared computers on your subnet (your local, internal office network) (It also shows Back to My Mac if it's set up; see Section 13.5.3.4.)
2 Click the computer whose files you want to open
In the main window, you now see the icons for each account holder on that
computer: Mom, Dad, Sissy, whatever If you have an account on the other
computer, you'll see a folder representing your stuff, too (Figure 13-9)
Figure 13-9 Without requiring any name or password on the other Mac, you have full access to anything the other account holders have left in their Public folders (There's a Public folder in everyone's Home folder.) At this point,
you're considered a Guest
At this point, the remaining instructions diverge, depending on whether you want
to access other people's stuff or your stuff That's why there are two alternative versions of step 3 here:
3 a If you want to access the stuff that somebody else has left for you, double-click that person's Public folder
Trang 4Instantly, the icon for that folder appears on your desktop, and an Eject button appears beside the computer's name in the Sidebar (You can turn off both of those visual signals in Finder Preferences.)
In this situation, you're only a Guest You don't have to bother with a password
On the other hand, the only thing you can generally see inside the other person's account folder is his Public folder
Tip: Actually, you might see other folders here —if the account holder has
specifically shared them and decided that you're important enough to have access
to them, as described on Section 13.2.2
One thing you'll find inside the Public folder is the Drop Box folder This folder exists so that you can give files and folders to the other person You can drop any
of your own icons onto the Drop Box folder —but you can't open the Drop Box folder to see what other people have put there It's one-way, like a mail slot in somebody's front door
If you see anything else at all in the Public folder you've opened, then it's stuff that the account holder has copied there for the enjoyment of you and your network mates You're not allowed to delete anything from the other person's Public folder
or make changes to them
Figure 13-10 Top: You can sign in to your account on another Mac on the network (even while somebody else is actually using that Mac in person) Click Connect As (top right), and then enter your name and password Turn
on "Remember this password" to speed up the process for next time The Action ( ) pop-up menu offers a Change Password that gives you the opportunity to change your account password on the other machine, just in
case you suspect someone saw what you typed
Bottom: No matter which method you use to connect to a shared folder or disk, its icon shows up in the Sidebar It's easy to disconnect, thanks to the
little button
Trang 5You can, however, open those icons, read them, or even copy them to your Mac
— and then edit your copies
b To access your own Home folder on the other Mac, click it, and then click the Connect As button (Figure 13-10) Sign in as usual
When the "Connect to the file server" box appears, you're supposed to specify your account name and password (from the Mac you're tapping into) This is the same name and password you'd use to log in if you were actually sitting at that machine
Type your short user name and password (If you're not sure what your short user name is, open System Preferences on your home-base Mac, click Accounts, and then click your account name.) And if you didn't set up a password for your
account, leave the password box empty
Tip: The dialog box shown in Figure 13-10 includes the delightful and timesaving
"Remember this password in my keychain" option, which makes the Mac
memorize your password for a certain disk so you don't have to type it —or even see this dialog box —every darned time you connect (If you have no password, though, the "Remember password" doesn't work, and you'll have to confront — and press Enter to dismiss —the "Connect to the file server" box every time.)
When you click Connect (or press Return or Enter), your own Home folder on the other Mac appears Its icon shows up on your desktop, and a little button appears next to its name Click it to disconnect
Tip: Once you've connected to a Mac using your account, the other Mac has a lock
on your identity You'll be able to connect to the other Mac over and over again during this same computing session, without ever having to retype your password
In the meantime, you can double-click icons to open them, make copies of them, and otherwise manipulate them exactly as though they were icons on your own hard drive Depending on what permissions you've been given, you can even edit
or trash those files
Trang 6Tip: There's one significant difference between working with "local" icons and
working with those that sit elsewhere on the network When you delete a file from another Mac on the network, either by pressing the Delete key or by dragging it to the Trash, a message appears to let you know that you're about to delete that item instantly and permanently It won't simply land in the Trash "folder," awaiting the Empty Trash command
You can even use Spotlight to find files on that networked disk If the Mac across the network is running Leopard, in fact, you can search for words inside its files, just as though you were sitting in front of it If not, you can search only for text in files' names
13.3.2 Connection Method B: Connect to Server
The Sidebar method of connecting to networked folders and disks is practically effortless
It involves nothing more than clicking your way through folders —a skill that, in theory, you already know
But the Sidebar method lacks some advantages of the older "Connect to Server" method
of Mac OS X versions gone by For example, the Sidebar method doesn't let you type in a disk's network address As a result, you can't access any shared disk on the Internet (an FTP site, for example), or indeed anywhere beyond your local subnet (your own small network)
Fortunately, there's another way When you choose Go Connect to Server, you get the dialog box shown in Figure 13-11 You're supposed to type in the address of the shared disk you want
Figure 13-11 The Sidebar method of connecting to shared disks and folders is quick and easy, but it doesn't let you connect to certain kinds of disks The Connect to Server method entails plodding through several dialog boxes and doesn't let you browse for shared disks, but it can find just about every kind of networked disk
For example, from here, you can connect to:
Trang 7• Everyday Macs on your network If you know the IP address of the Mac you're
trying to access (you geek!), you can type nothing but its IP address into the box and then hit Connect
And if the other Mac runs Mac OS X 10.2 or later, you can just type its Bonjour (Rendezvous) name: afp://upstairs-PowerMac.local/
Tip: To find out your Mac's IP address, open the Network pane of System
Preferences There, near the top, you'll see a message like this: "AirPort is
connected to Tim's Hotspot and has the IP address 192.168.1.113." That's your IP address.To see your Bonjour address, open the Sharing pane of System
Preferences pane Click File Sharing Near the top, you'll see the computer name with ".local" tacked onto its name —and hyphens instead of spaces —like this: Little-MacBook.local
After you enter your account password and choose the shared disk or folder you want, its icon appears on your desktop and in the Sidebar You're connected
exactly as though you had clicked Connect As (Figure 13-10)
The next time you open the Connect to Server dialog box, Mac OS X remembers that address, as a courtesy to you, and shows it pre-entered in the Address field
• Macs across the Internet If your Mac has a permanent (static) IP address, the
computer itself can be a server, to which you can connect from anywhere in the world via the Internet Details on this procedure begin on Section 22.1
• An iDisk An iDisk is a file server, too (Section 18.6.1) The easiest way to bring
your own iDisk icon to the screen is to click the iDisk icon in your Sidebar But what if you're not using your own Mac? What if you're visiting a friend, and you want to bring your iDisk to his screen?
In that case, you could choose Go Disk Other User's iDisk —or, if you're a Connect to Server kind of person, type afp://idisk.mac.com into the Connect to Server dialog box When you click Connect, the Mac asks for your iDisk name and password Type them in, and after a moment, your iDisk's icon pops up on the desktop
• Windows machines Find out the PC's IP address or computer name, and then use
this format for the address: smb://192.168.1.34 or smb://Cheapo-Dell
Trang 8After a moment, you're asked to enter your Windows account name and password, and then to choose the name of the shared folder you want When you click OK, the shared folder appears on your desktop as an icon, ready to use (More on
sharing with Windows PCs later in this chapter.)
Tip: If you know the name of the shared folder, you can add that after a slash, like
this: smb://192.168.4.23/ sharedstuff You save yourself one dialog box
GEM IN THE ROUGH Faster Ways to Connect Next Time
If you expect that you might want to access a shared disk or folder again later,
take a moment to make an alias of it (For example, Control-click it and choose Make Alias from the shortcut menu.)
Next time, you can bring it back to your screen later just by double-clicking the alias And if you turned on "Remember this password in my keychain," you
won't even be asked for your name and password again
Similarly, if you drag a shared folder into the Dock, you can bring it back to
your screen later just by clicking its icon
You can even drag its icon into the Login Items window described on Section
9.16 Now the disk appears on your desktop automatically each time you log in
—the most effortless arrangement of all
• NFS servers If you're on a network with Unix machines, you can tap into one of
their shared directories using this address format: nfs://Machine-Name/pathname, where Machine-Name is the computer's name or IP address, and pathname is the folder path (Section 1.2.4) to the shared item you want
• FTP servers Mac OS X makes it simple to bring FTP servers onto your screen,
too (These are the drives, out there on the Internet, that store the files used by Web sites.)
In the Connect to Server dialog box, type the FTP address of the server you want, like this: www.apple.com If the site's administrators have permitted anonymous
Trang 9access —the equivalent of a Guest account —that's all there is to it A Finder window pops open, revealing the FTP site's contents
If you need a password for the FTP site, however, what you type into the Connect
to Server dialog box should incorporate the account name you've been given, like this: yourname@www.apple.com You'll be asked for your password
UP TO SPEED Hello, Bonjour
Throughout this chapter, and throughout this book, you'll encounter rituals in
which you're supposed to connect to another Mac, server, or printer by typing in its IP address (its unique network address)
But first of all, IP addresses are insanely difficult to memorize (192.179.244.3, anyone?) Second, networks shouldn't require you to deal with them anyway If
a piece of equipment is on the network, it should announce its presence, rather than making you specifically call for it by name
Now you can appreciate the beauty of Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous), an
underlying Mac OS X networking technology that lets networked gadgets detect each other on the network automatically and recognize each other's capabilities
It's Bonjour at work, for example, that makes other Macs' names show up in
your iTunes program so that you can listen to their music from across the
network Bonjour is also responsible for filling up your Bonjour buddy list in
iChat automatically, listing everyone who's on the same office network; for
making shared Macs' names show up in the Sidebar's Network icon; and for
making the names of modern laser printers from HP, Epson, or Lexmark appear like magic in the list of printers in the Print dialog box
And if you're lucky enough to have (a) a TiVo Series 2 (or later) video recorder for your television, (b) a home network that connects it with your Mac, and (c) TiVo's Home Networking Option, you already know that your Mac's name
magically appears on the TiVo screen This allows you to play your iTunes
music, or put on a slide show of your iPhoto pictures, right on the TV Once
again, it's Bonjour at work
It's even more tantalizing to contemplate the future of Bonjour To
quotewww.zeroconf.org, whose underlying technology forms the basis of
Bonjour:
"The long-term goal of Zeroconf is to enable the creation of entirely new kinds
Trang 10of networked products, products that today would simply not be commercially
viable because of the inconvenience and support costs involved in setting up,
configuring, and maintaining a network to allow them to operate."
But that's just the beginning If electronics companies show interest (and some
have already), you may someday be able to connect the TV, stereo, and DVD
player with just a couple of Ethernet cables, instead of a rat's nest of audio and
video cables
For most of us, that day can't come soon enough
Tip: You can even eliminate that password-dialog box step by using this address
format: yourname:yourpassword@www.apple.com
Once you type it and press Return, the FTP server appears as a disk icon on your desktop (and in the Sidebar) Its contents appear, ready to open or copy
• WebDAV server This special Web-based shared disk requires a special address
format, like this: http://Computer-Name/pathname (Technically, the iDisk is a WebDAV server —but there are far user-friendlier ways to get at it.)
In each case, once you click OK, you may be asked for your name and password
And now, some timesaving features in the Connect to Server box:
• Once you've typed a disk's address, you can click+to add it to the list of server
favorites The next time you want to connect, you can just double-click its name
• The clock-icon pop-up menu lists Recent Servers —computers you've accessed
recently over the network If you choose one of them from this pop-up menu, you can skip having to type in an address
Tip: Like the Sidebar network-browsing method, the Connect to Server command
displays each connected computer as an icon in your Sidebar, even within the Open or Save dialog boxes of your programs You don't have to burrow through the Sidebar's Network icon to open files from them, or save files onto them