InformIT: Mac OS X Unleashed

Table of Contents

AppleTalk

AppleTalk is a communication protocol pioneered by Apple in the era of the Macintosh Plus. This protocol was designed for networking small collections of computers on relatively small networks. Because it was designed to facilitate network-building by people with no interest in being network designers or administrators, AppleTalk is a rather chatty and inefficient protocol. Because of its ease of use, it has survived the transition to a mostly Ethernet-based world, and prospered in environments where its inefficiencies do not impair other network services.

Because of its intimate association with Apple's printing and file sharing software, AppleTalk is sometimes thought of as actually being disk services and print services. In reality, it's a communication protocol, over which disk, print, and other services can be delivered. Because of this, like TCP/IP, AppleTalk connectivity is configured from the Network control pane and services that need to use AppleTalk are configured elsewhere.

Setting Up

AppleTalk is enabled and configured from the AppleTalk subpanes of the Ethernet and AirPort configuration sets.

Figure 9.11 shows the AppleTalk subpane for the AirPort configuration (the Ethernet version looks identical).

Figure 9.11 The AppleTalk subpane of the Network control pane. The AppleTalk settings configured here are specific for the interface configuration set that you're editing.

The AppleTalk subpane is where the following options can be configured:

Make AppleTalk Active— Activate AppleTalk for this interface.
AppleTalk Zone— If your AppleTalk network has multiple zones, you can select the zone you want your computer to join from this menu. If you're on a network with multiple zones, your network administrator should be able to tell you what the proper setting is for your computer.
Configure— Gives you the option of manually configuring your AppleTalk network parameters, or automatically determining the information. The AppleTalk Network ID and Node ID are similar to a TCP/IP subnet and IP address. This difference is AppleTalk is designed so that the computers in a network can cooperatively and automatically work out this information for themselves, without needing it to be specified by the users or administrators. There are very few instances in which you should need to set the system up for manual configuration.
Node ID— If your network administrator tells you that you need to configure your machine for fixed, rather than automatically determined AppleTalk network information, the node ID goes here.
Network ID— If your network administrator tells you that you need to configure your machine for fixed AppleTalk network information, the Network ID goes here. If your network administrator gives you the network ID as ###.###, instead of a number between 1 and 65534, multiply the first by 256 and add the second to it. If you are given the number as ##.##.##, multiply the first by 256, the second by 16, and then add the those two results with the third number.

Sharing Files

With OS X, Apple has made some significant changes to the way AppleTalk works both when sharing and mounting disks and folders. Some of these changes make good sense—for example, the Unix-side file ownerships control what can be accessed from remote—no more sharing settings for drives and folders, if you have permission to use it locally, you have permission to access it remotely. On the other hand, the new model of browsing the AppleTalk network feels a little like exploring an alien planet, compared to the comfortable and convenient network-world view we've come to expect from the Chooser.

To share files under AppleTalk in OS X, you have to do only one thing—turn on AppleTalk file sharing in the Sharing panel. Figure 9.12 shows the panel with the sharing option turned on. Turning this on enables AppleTalk sharing of all the machine's resources. Instead of enabling and disabling sharing for particular drives or folders, the new model shares everything. The user ID, with which remote machines connect, controls which volumes or folders appear to be available. Regardless of other permissions, the contents of each user's Public folder are shared with guest-read permission to the world.

Figure 9.12 The Sharing panel with AppleTalk file sharing enabled.

Connecting to Remote Servers

The venerable Apple Chooser is gone, long live the Chooser! Want to mount a file system shared from a remote AppleShare server? Look under the Apple menu for the…nope, it's not there—it's under the Finder's Go menu, Connect to Server. When you choose the Connect to Server menu item, you're presented with a network-browsing dialog, like the one shown in Figure 9.13, with significant similarities to the Finder list view. This dialog provides you with a list of individual machines and machines that are collected into domains. When a domain is selected in a pane, it expands to show the members of that domain in the pane to its right. In Figure 9.13, the Local Network domain has been selected; it shows two individual machines and a domain that are available under the Local Network domain.

Figure 9.13 The Connect to Server dialog box browsing the Local Network domain.

In Figure 9.14, the hierarchy of machines and domains has been moved left, and one of the machines has been selected. An URL-like address for the machine appears in the Address box of the dialog (indicating that it's an AFP [Apple Filing Protocol] server) along with its IP address.

Figure 9.14 The Connect to Server dialog box with a machine in the Local Network domain selected.

In Figure 9.15, the net.chi.ohio-state.edu subdomain of the Local Network domain was selected instead. This domain again expands into the pane to the right of it, again showing the machines that are members of the domain.

Figure 9.15 The Connect to Server dialog box with a subdomain selected.

To actually mount a file system or folder from a machine, browse to the machine that you're interested in, and select it from one of the panes of the Connect to Server dialog. If you want, you can add this machine to your favorites list. If a machine is selected, as shown in Figure 9.16, and the Connect button is clicked, a connection dialog box such as Figure 9.17 will appear.

Figure 9.16 Selecting a machine from the Connect to Server dialog box to mount a disk from it.

Figure 9.17 When connecting to a remote server, you must do so either as a guest, for access to Public folders, or as a user to access files that require read permission.

You can connect as a guest, if you want to access just the Public folders on the remote machine. Otherwise, connect with your user ID and password to access the folders and file systems on the remote machine that the user ID has read permission.

The Options button opens the dialog box shown in Figure 9.18, where you can elect to add the user ID and password information to a keychain. The Options dialog will also enable you to send your password in clear text; that is, unprotected and visible to anyone watching your network. We strongly recommend that you not enable the Clear Text option.

Figure 9.18 The options available when connecting to an AppleShare server. Please do not enable clear text passwords unless you have a very good reason to do so, and are secure against the significant risks.

Disks and folders that you mount via AppleTalk will appear on your desktop if you have the option to show disks enabled on the desktop. They will also appear at the top level of the Finder hierarchy, with the other drive resources.

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