# Apple File Sharing on a local network



## ericmurphy (May 28, 2006)

I have what should be a pretty simple question: how do I get AppleTalk shares to show up in the "Connect to Server" dialog?

I've never had to get an answer to this question, because I've always gotten it to work in a completely different manner.

My home network consists of three Macs running OS X 10.4.6. All three machines have publicly-accessible static IP addresses, and all three have fully-qualified domain names. So, when I want to connect via Personal File Sharing to one of the three machines from anywhere in the world, I can just enter in its fully-qualified domain name, enter my username and password, and poof! I'm connected.

But for some reason, despite Appletalk being enabled on all three machines, they don't show up in the Connect to Server dialog (except under their domain names). Shouldn't they also show up under their AppleTalk computer name as well? If I weren't a bit of a geek, would I even be able to connect them to each other?


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## HateEternal (May 28, 2006)

What do you mean they don't show up? The aren't there when you open the window or when you type in their name it fails to connect? We're talking about Finder > Go > Connect to Server right?

The connect to server dialog requires the protocol to be used. The protocol you want is Apple File Protocol or afp. So you should enter the url like this: afp://server/share. Similarily if you wanted to connect to a samba share it would be smb://server/share.


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## ericmurphy (May 29, 2006)

HateEternal said:
			
		

> What do you mean they don't show up? They aren't there when you open the window or when you type in their name it fails to connect? We're talking about Finder > Go > Connect to Server right?



Yep, that's exactly what we're talking about. Let's say the domain name for the server in question is foo.com. If I go to Finder > Go > Connect to server, and type in foo.com, I can connect. Note that I don't have to include the "afp://" in front of the domain name.

But the AppleTalk name (in this instance, fooor foo.local) doesn't appear in the dialog box. Moreover, typing in foo, foo.local, afp://foo, or afp://foo.local doesn't work. However, foo.com or afp://foo.com _does_ work, which leads me to believe the Finder is using DNS to find the server.



> The connect to server dialog requires the protocol to be used. The protocol you want is Apple File Protocol or afp. So you should enter the url like this: afp://server/share. Similarily if you wanted to connect to a samba share it would be smb://server/share.



Actually, no, it doesn't. As I said, I can just use foo.com, and I can connect via AFP just fine. But if I don't use the fully-qualified domain name, nothing happens. Which, to me, means DNS works, but AppleTalk (whether it's AppleTalk over IP or afp) doesn't.

Note that this appears to be true of all three of my machines, so it seems unlikely it would be some sort of broken service. It pretty much has to be a misconfiguration that I've done on all three machines.


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## marzer (May 29, 2006)

Do you mean the "Connect To Server" dialog?  Or the Network browser?

Unlike earlier versions of Mac OS X, in Tiger the "Connect To Server" dialog does not detect and display available servers.  Although, you can add frequently used addresses to the list box.  The network browser, however, will detect and list available servers.  By default, selecting a resource from the browser will connect via AFP if the protocol is available from the server.

Mark


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## gsahli (May 29, 2006)

As part of the phase-out of appletalk, 10.4 doesn't use APF (Apple Filing Protocol) over appletalk anymore. AFP on 10.4 can only use TCP/IP port 548 for connection. 10.2 & 10.3 also used only TCP/IP when talking to 10.2 and higher Macs, but at least they could use appletalk to connect to other shares (OS 9, Windows 2K server, etc).
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301183
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302784

Can you describe your network scheme a bit more? If the computers all have public IP addresses, are they in the same subnet? Are they connected to a switch rather than a router? Is it possible there is a router/firewall device that you don't have control over that blocks all the ports below, say 2000?


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## ericmurphy (May 30, 2006)

gsahli said:
			
		

> Can you describe your network scheme a bit more? If the computers all have public IP addresses, are they in the same subnet? Are they connected to a switch rather than a router? Is it possible there is a router/firewall device that you don't have control over that blocks all the ports below, say 2000?



My network is pretty basic. I've got a DSL connection with five usable static IP addresses, all on the same subnet (subnet mask is 255.255.255.248). All three computers connect directly to the DSL modem through its built-in switch. The only firewalls on the LAN side of the DSL modem are ipfw on each Mac, and of course, personal file sharing is turned on (which is clearly the case, since all three Macs can see each other's shares, but they find each other through DNS).

Actually, the computers do show up under "Network" in the Finder, so I can get to them that way.

But here's an additional rub. I purchased a MacBook Pro and an airport base station last week. The base station connects to the same DSL modem as the other three computers, and has a publicly-accessible IP address on the same subnet as the other three machines. I can actually connect from any of the three Macs to the MacBook Pro via port mapping (currently the only port I have mapped is TCP 497, which Retrospect uses for client backup), but for some reason, none of the three Macs show up under "Network" on the MacBook Pro. Is this because anything connected to the AirPort base station is network is actually on a separate network? I'm guessing yes, because the IP addressing scheme is totally different, i.e., 10.0.0.X, from the addressing scheme on the rest of the network.

Again, this isn't a showstopper because I can connect to any of the other three machines either by using their IP address or their domain name. But I am, nevertheless, curious.


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## marzer (May 30, 2006)

Yes, that's correct, the NAT network behind the Airpot prevents the other machines from accessing the MacBook Pro directly.  Using port filtering as described above will permit access to the machine from other IP subnets.  But does the Base station have a configurable firewall to pass services?  Never used one.

Mark


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