New to MAC

A

adrenaline

Registered
Hi gang,
I was hoping someone can tell me where to go or give a quick getting started guide.
I am a network admin for a small business. It is mostly PC's but our graphical department is using Panther. I have some UNIX/LINUX skills. I try from my Red Hat box to ssh/telnet to one of out panther boxes and it says not permitted. I would like to create a shared directory on our domain that the macs and pc's can access. Or I can I create a shared file on the MAC box that the PC's can access? Samba? Is this possible? If so what do I have to do to the Mac? I have almost no MAC skills although I am proficient with Unix Linux. Can anybody give me some Idea how to get started. I would greatly appreciate it. I am proficient with computers so I can figure things out I just need a place to start.

Thanks in advance,
Mike
 
- Start by looking at the System Preferences --> Sharing on the Mac to find out the services you can run "out of the box". Samba, FTP, AFP, CUPS and SSH can all be turned on with the click of a button. There are neatly presented instructions in this window explaining what address each service would have on the network.

- To connect the Mac to another share (eg: a Windows box) go to the Finder and choose Go --> Connect to Server ...
After mounting a share, drag its icon to Favourites in finder to bookmark it, or drag it to a Finder toolbar, or the Dock, or into System Preferences --> Login Items ... so it appears at logon.

- If you're still stuck, more advanced settings can be found in /Applications/Utilities/Directory Access

- To access the Unix terminal, go to /Applications/Utilities/Terminal
 
I have set up a samba share on a solaris box that my macs can access. Should be able to set up a Samba share on your macs that the PC can access.
Tcp-wrappers comes installed on the Mac. By using a hosts.allow and hosts.deny files with it you can limit access by ip or dns name.
 
Thank you for the great advice. I was able to get ssh going and network, but where you said finder >connect to server "connect to server".
It shows up in network neighborhood now. Is there a network neighborhood type thing in MAC OS 10? Also how can I create a root account on MAC?
Thanks
Mike
 
Welcome to Macintosh :)

What version of Mac OS X are you running ? I am using Panther (10.3) so these explanations are be based on that, but as far as my memory serves me, Jaguar (10.2) is essentially the same thing. (Also my system is French so the menu translations may not be 100% accurate).

In the Finder you can select Go > Network (or shift-apple-k) to show the network browser. This is similar to Network Neighbourhood in Windows. If you have Windows Sharing enabled it will show you all the Macintosh machines and all the Windows machines that have sharing enabled. The list may take some time to populate however.

As for root accounts, one exists already but is disabled by default. To enable it for whatever reason you can use /Applicaitons/Utilities/Netinfo Manager.app and under the Security menu item, Activate Root User. By the way, NetInfo Manager is similar to a redhat-config-everything since it lets you access a good portion of the system's settings. Some power-user alterations, however, need to be made by editing some system .plist (Preference List) files manually; we won't get into that unless you need to.

If, however, your regular user is an "Administrator" you will already be a member of the ADMIN group which is in /etc/sudoers by default. You will also be able to perform all "administrative" functions in OS X (like changing all system preferences, move files to other user's folders, etc) from the GUI.
 
My MAC users are being really hesitant to let me touch their machines. I managed to get ssh working. I can ssh to the box. Is there away to do this in the command line? BTW it is Panther.

Thanks,
Mike
 
adrenaline said:
Is there away to do this in the command line?
Click to expand...

Enable the root uset ? Hmm, there is likely a way to do it using a command called `niutil` (NetInfo Utility). Unforunately I don't know how; you could check another thread (probably in HOW-TO & FAQ) on "Adding users using niutil".

Remember you don't need to add root, it already exists, you just have to enable it.

Now as for remote admininstration, why not look into Apple Remote Desktop. I use it and find it extremely useful. It even has a proprietary VNC and chat, screen control and sharing, etc.
 
There is an easier way to enable the root user at the command line.

"sudo passwd root" will do the trick, provided you only want to log in through the console. You'll need to use the Netinfo trick to add root to the users list at logon screen, though.

However, I know of no reason why you'd ever need to activate the root account.
 
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