topic Re: Networking mac & pc in Installation & update

Networking mac & pc

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:26:17 GMT

We have a small Practice only two man show. i am the computer guy sense i am still in school. the problem is that recently by updating my pc laptop to service pac 2 or sometime prior the two computers no longer communicate with another. My boss is running an apple G-4 with the latest mac OS. I have tried everything i can think of. when my boss tries to log onto server (my laptop)using the IP he is asked for his user name and password by my machine. then he gets an error message telling him system resources not found. it was all working so well and some stupid update that i am completely unable to track down messed it all up. neither one of the machines can see the other when browsing the network. i tried setting back my system and that didn't even work which decent make sense. i will try just about anything to fix it other than getting a new machine.

Re: Networking mac & pc

aahatimo — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:42:31 GMT

sp2 installs w/ firewall defaulted to on. that may be it. there is a new windows firewall tool in control panel.

Re: Networking mac & pc

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:12:24 GMT

nope i already turned the windows firewall off. I use McAfee firewall and his IP is on the allowed list

Re: Networking mac & pc

__archiben — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 04:14:33 GMT

has SP2 done anything to the authentification methods required by your PC? maybe trashing the mac's network prefs and user keychain for your server will clear it . . .

on the mac:
/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access

find the authentification files for your 'server' and delete it/them

also, run an application on the mac called 'Cocktail' (www.macosxcocktail.com i think) to clear the logs and caches and run the cron maintenance scripts. ('cocktail' is simply a GUI for a whole bunch of unix commands - you may well know how to do this directly from the terminal)

if this still doesn't work, i would say there's a bigger problem on the PC side . . . and there you're on your own!

HTH
~archiben

Re: Networking mac & pc

dwyckoff — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 22:26:51 GMT

Greetings. Have you figured out your problem yet? I have a G5 networked to a XP server at home. I suggest the obvious first: Make sure you are on the same subnet (usually 255.255.255.0) and that the shared folders on the PC use the exact short user name and the same login password as the Mac. See the Mac OS help on the Mac.

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 00:33:52 GMT

Why not turn around and set up the mac as a server instead? If OSX's default Windows filesharing isn't enough, theres an app called Sharepoints <http://www.hornware.com> Lets you share any folder/directory, not just the Shared default.

A free alternative to Cocktail is OnyX <http://www.titanium.free.fr/>

Re: Networking mac & pc

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:06:17 GMT

Some more information for the pile.

I added a Mac dual G4 to my network (peer to peer) this week and was pleased with how easy sharing is between OS X and XP, except that I have experienced the following glitch that may be related to your problem:

One of the XP computers on my network is XP Home SP2, the other two are XP Pro SP2. OS X is 10.3.6 with all updates installed.

The Mac always sees the XP Home machine. However, it only sees the XP Pro machine when each machine has been rebooted. If I open an XP shared folder on the Mac and later put the Mac to sleep, not only is the share lost, but when I browse my workgroup, that XP machine is completely gone as well ... the XP Home machine never disappears.

Same security settings on each XP machine for firewall, etc. and each has a password established for accessing the folders.

If you solve this, please post the result. I bought the G4 used with 1 year remaining on AppleCare and am waiting for the AppleCare to get transfered so I can call Apple tech support to figure this out. Maybe you'll resolve it before then. 😉

BTW: I can always access the Mac from the disappearing XP Pro machine, so the suggestion of making the Mac the server might be a way for you to go.

HTH,
Karl

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 19:12:38 GMT

I might add that our office is five Macs and one PC. The server is a mac with OSX 10.3.6 client with Windows sharing on and Sharepoints (this is a lot cheaper than OSX Server 😉

We have one shared data folder on the server. (everthing shared, projects, workfiles, shared libraries etc reside there) All machines have full read/write privileges to it. This folder is backed up to one external Firewire hard drive once a day, and to another now and then (should be once a week 😉.
For this procedure, we use Silverkeeper on the server (www.silverkeeper.com), a free no-hassle OSX backup program that is maintained by laCie (to sell more drives, I guess).

This set-up has been working flawlessly for more than two years.

The PC is a Dell with XP pro SP2. It's firewall is turned off. But we have a D-link router with firewall built-in to protect the network from external attacs through our ADSL internet link.

One thought. The fact that the machines lose their connection when re-started might have something to do with the way they get their Ethernet network adresses. If they don't have fixed IP adresses, a DHCP server must hand out temporary IP leases every time a machine starts. This is usually done by a hardware or software "router" that has a DHCP server built-in.

In my experience it's a lot more stable to give each machine a fixed local IP network adress (192.168.0.1 etc) than to use DHCP (dynamic address allocation). To make this work along with internet connectivity for all machines, you need a router that has NAT (network address translation) between your network and the Internet. If all machines have fixed IPs set, you can turn DHCP off at the router. If it has a configurable firewall too you get very good protection AND a stable, fast network. Routers are cheap these days. Well worth their money.

Each machine's address is set in its TCP/IP properties in the network control panel (system preferences).

Fixed IPs also makes for faster startup times. And you set up the router for internet by your ISP's instructions as you would a single internet-connected computer.

A tip for configuring any Ethernet network is to download Apple's Designing Airport Networks handbook:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/airport/DesigningAirPortNetworks0190271.pdf

It has a lot of good tips on how to to this, and it explains TCP/IP networks in what I think is the easiest possible way. You don't need an Airport to understand.

Re: Networking mac & pc

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 03:23:39 GMT

Thanks for all of the tips, Thomas.

I've learned a little more since my last post.

For one, there is a bug in OS 10.3.6 that prevents browsing to printers shared by Windows networking. Discussed on Apple forums. Browsing the network finds no printers. 10.3.5 apparently was fine. Holding command while clicking the Add button to add a new printer lets you choose "Advanced" and enter an SMB network address for the shared printer. This seemed to work for people on the chat group ... but hasn't yet for me.

Others have also complained about Windows computers coming and going in Finder. I've found that I can connect to a Windows computer by giving its \\computername address path even when Finder decides not to show it. Haven't needed to enter the static IP address yet, although each Windows machine is static.

Accessing the Mac from Windows is always flawless.

Karl

Re: Networking mac & pc

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 05:56:09 GMT

My networking problems (below) have gone away with the 10.3.7 update.

Karl

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 18:12:02 GMT

Interesting, Karl. I've been a little reluctant to update to 10.3.7, because of the Macfixit reports (www.macfixit.com - a valuablee troubleshooting source!).

But what you say may be an explanation to the troubles I've had to share an Apple Laserwriter at home with my kids' PC's.

Happy Holidays!

Re: Networking mac & pc

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:28:53 GMT

Thomas wrote:
Interesting, Karl. I've been a little reluctant to update to 10.3.7, because of the Macfixit reports (www.macfixit.com - a valuablee troubleshooting source!).

Thanks for the link to macfixit, Thomas! I'm still coming up to speed on Mac OS X ... give me another few weeks. 😉 Yes, I did notice slower startup as mentioned on that site after upgrading to 10.3.7. I usually just put the Mac to sleep, so put off worrying about it... but will now read more as I find time, or perhaps 10.3.8 will be out by then. 😉

Happy solstice and holidays to you, too. 😉

Karl

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:46:35 GMT

Thanks again, Karl!

Today I dared do the update to 10.3.7. Everything worked fine, and to me the system seems faster afterwards. It often does. But I did some other things as well (see below).

And here are some other Mac OSX tips that you may not need:
When people report problems after a system software update, in my experience it's most often symptoms of trouble they already had before, but that didn't surface until the update. This is of course unless there are really massive and widespread trouble reports after the update was published. That's why I try to keep an eye on http://www.macfixit.com after Software Update reports that something new is available. I usually wait and see a couple of days or a week before I install it.

To be on the safer side, there are some things you can do:

First, use some houskeeping application once in a while. There are several alternatives. I've settled for a French freeware called OnyX.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/
It's actually just a GUI frontend for a bunch of Unix system tools otherwise available through the Terminal. You can update Whatis and Locate databases, access the Safari Debug menu, and a lot of other things, but what i usually do is just use the handy Automate option before each Software Update. This way, I by just one click
- repair permissons
- run the Unix "daily, weekly, monthly" maintenance scripts (I have to do it this way, because they are run automatically by the system only if the machine is kept running all night, and I turn it off when i quit working)
- update system optimization
- erase user caches and clean system caches
- erase logs, Internet caches and history, and
- erase recent Objects and Servers.

Then I run the Software Update. You should know that Apple publishes these updates as downloadable files that you can run off-line too. Handy if you have a slow Internet connection and several machines to update. Also, the system updates are usually published as two options: One "incremental" that assumes that you have applied all previous updates available since the OS version (in this case 10.3) was distributed on CDs,
and one "Combo" version that contains all these updates in one file.
Information on both is in this case available here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300385-sv

The Combo version can anytime be used instead of the incremental, and sometimes this avoids problems that people get using Software Update, probably because it re-installs fresh versions of system files that may have been manipulated by other programs in the meantime.

The Combo version is of course handy if you need to re-install the system from the CDs, too. No Microsoft-like update-restart-update-restart forever, just do it once.

I used the Combo version this time, and that may have saved me some of the trouble others have mentioned.

Then, after the update is complete, I usually run Utilities > Disk Utility > Repair Permissons too. This is something that often needs to be done after any new software installation. I guess because some installers don't get everything right at once.

Oh, and I forgot the most important: Backup your data first! I use a very handy and versatile freeware app called Silverkeeper
http://www.silverkeeper.com
It's supported and maintained by laCie, and works beautifully.

All the best!

Re: Networking mac & pc

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:35:11 GMT

Thomas wrote:
- erase user caches and clean system caches
- erase logs, Internet caches and history, and...!

Do you mead actually the Folder CACHES (User/Library/Caches)? Is there any ramification on the system or applications?
Thanks,
joseph

Re: Networking mac & pc

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:20:36 GMT

Thanks for all of the tips, Thomas! Am downloading the free apps now and will take a look... 😉

Karl

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:54:40 GMT

Do you mead actually the Folder CACHES (User/Library/Caches)? Is there any ramification on the system or applications?

I don't know the technical details. What I know is that MacOSX logs and caches (temporarily stores in memory and on disk) a lot of data while you work (application code, search paths, recent documents, used fonts, settings, recently visited server data, web pages etc). This is why the second restart after a clean system install is faster than the first, etc.

But when the system is updated, some of this cached data might get obsolete because something has changed in how the system uses the data. So, if the caches aren't clean enough, something might go wrong. This is the most common cause for network or printing trouble after a system update, I think.

Of course, the system update itself should take care of this, but as a safety measure, I can do it myself this way and thus ensure that the update is as smooth as possible. I should maybe stress the fact that the application OnyX, like its more expensive colleagues Cocktail, MacSweep et al., does nothing by itself. When you click the buttons, it just issues Terminal commands to start BSDUnix routines already available (and supplied by Apple) with the OSX/BSD system.

I would never try to do this myself by manually removing files. Most of them are anyway invisible and non-permitted to access through the GUI. I'd like to stress: Never mess with the system - let those who know do it instead. But as with every application, there's always the risk that the developer messed things up. Backup!

(the folder you mention, as seen by the GUI, should never be touched. It's primarily a storage place for application caches and data, I think)

Re: Networking mac & pc

__archiben — Sun, 26 Dec 2004 06:07:56 GMT

Joseph wrote:
Is there any ramification on the system or applications?

the caches and logs can get very big if they're not cleaned out regularly. the system uses, adds to and keeps track of this data during normal operation and so can begin to slow if it's trying to manage a lot.

you'll probably never experience a slow-down purely because of the caches and logs because permissions and prebindings will have an impact way before that after any heavy installation . . .

HTH
~/archiben

Re: Networking mac & pc

Thomas Holm — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 15:18:08 GMT

I just noticed that OnyX (the free OSX system maintenace tool) has been updated to 1.4.9. There is a description at
http://www.applelegal.com/software_comments.php?id=204_0_1_0_C

Re: Networking mac & pc

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:37:33 GMT

That was on Dec 26, last year.

For users of Quicksilver there is a newer version out and so for Delicious library