Leopard won't share files

MidnightJava

Registered
I just upgraded to Leopard, and I can't get Windows file sharing to work. I followed the instructions, which seems simple enough, but it just doesn't work.

I went to the Sharing pane, turned File Sharing on, enabled SMB sharing via the Options button, and set up users with read/write access to the desired folders. I also set the firewall to be wide open. From my windows machine I can ping the Mac, but if I enter the IP address or the Mac computer name in the "Map Network Drive" window on the PC, it doesn't find the network path. And if I browse for servers to connect to, the Mac doesn't show up, and there is no WORKGROUP or other entries.

This worked just fine with Tiger using Sharepoints. The only thing I changed was upgrading the Mac to leopard. Any ideas?
 
Well in Leopard it changed a little. You have to open System Preferences->Sharing, File Sharing then a new pane will open up where you can click on the + sign to add folders to share. If you look at the article Sharing files between a Windows Vista Home Edition PC and a Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5 will give you the idea.

Plus did you open System Preferences->Network, click on the Ethernet setting, clicked on the "Advanced" button then clicked on the "WINS" tab. One other thing if you are part of a Windows domain read the whole article Connecting a Macintosh running Leopard (10.5) to SBS 2003 looking at all three pages.
 
Thanks for your reply. I did configure the File Sharing settings in the Settings Preferences pane just as you describe, having consulted a half-dozen articles that all said if I did that I'd be all set.

I hadn't done anything with the WINS tab, so I thought that may be my problem. It may well be, but I can't see how to configure it. My configuration is somewhat different than the SBS server in the article you pointed me to, so I made changes accordingly.

Specifically, I'm using a static internal IP address vice getting one from a DHCP server. Also for the DNS entry I have my ISP's DNS server, while the article said to use the internal IP address of the SBS server.

When I click the WINS tab, there's nothing selected in the Workgroup field, but the value Workgroup is available from the drop-down menu. I select that and click OK and Apply, but when I open the Advanced dialog again there's no Workgroup selected. I also tried to add the IP address of the PC as a WINS server by clicking "+". I enter 192.168.1.4, which we all know is a valid IP address; and Leopard responds by saying that I must enter a valid IP address, which is four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by periods. I tried every imaginable use of the keyboard and mouse, and there's no way to get Leopard to recognize that I've typed a valid IP address. I also successfully pinged the PC via its internal IP address (192.168.1.4).

My PC is indeed part of a Windows domain, though I usually run it with a cached profile, since it's a corporate laptop and I need to be connected to the VPN to reach the domain controller. I have a local account for the PC, and when I use that I still can't see the Mac. The Mac and the PC are both behind a NAT'd firewall, and their internal IP addresses are on the same subnet and pingable in both directions. I tried putting the Windows domain name in the "Search Domains" column of the WINS tab on the Mac, but that didn't help either. I read the article you pointed me to three times, and I don't see anything that addresses specifically the fact that my PC is part of a domain. Did I miss something?
 
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What is the PC running? Also when using the static IP are both the PC and the Mac using the same DNS server? Plus check to make sure neither the Mac or the PC is running a internal firewall. After all this I am all out of ideas because without physically looking at your network it will be hard for me to to diagnose your problem. Sorry.
 
Looks like I found the correct incantation. Network traffic analysis showed NETBIOS broadcasts going out from the PC and being received at the Mac, but no smdb traffic coming out from the Mac. For whatever reason the Mac doesn't advertise its shares; but now if I enter \\<ip_address>\<share_name> at the PC, I can connect. I thought I tried this yesterday at some point, but perhaps I had something else misconfigured then.

For the record, I have the same issue connecting from the old Mac running Tiger. I don't see the presence of the new Mac advertised, but I can connect to it if I specify the IP address and share name directly in the "Connect to Server..." dialog.

This has raised another question about the firewall in Leopard, but I'll post that as a separate thread. Thanks for your help.
 
Also it might be wise to bookmark the web site that dedicated to putting Macs into Windows domains/sharing is MacWindows.com. If you go to this site look at the reader reports listed in the right hand column links.

One other thing. in the 10.5.x Mac when you went into System Preferences->Sharing did you put a check mark in File Sharing then click the 'Options' keys to turn on sharing via SMB?
 
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