File sharing for osx

There are two categories of "other" people in OS X: The first is other locally defined non-guest accounts on the system, and the second is the guest account, which can be accessed without authentication.

Guest accounts are "Sharing only" accounts unless you specify otherwise, which mean they cannot log into the system and manage files and folders. You can enable local log-in for guest accounts so they can create files which will be deleted upon log out and have a temporary working environment, but we will not be doing that here.

Instead, for now the guest account is open to anyone who can see your computer, but is highly restricted. Despite the limitations, guests can write to your system but only to the "Drop Box" folder in any active account's "Public" folder. This can be changed in the Sharing system preferences by removing your public folder from the sharing list, or optionally by changing the permissions on the "Drop Box" folder in the Finder using the Everyone permissions options. If you do not want guests to be able to write files to your system even in known locations , be sure to change this behavior for every local account on your system.

Beyond this, however, by default guests cannot write to any part of your system. In OS X, you have the option to create multiple "Sharing Only" accounts similar to the guest account, so you can specify different permissions for some people while still keep the guest account restricted.

This is convenient if you want one person you know to have access to a folder on your disk from their computer, but not allow that person to have a full local account on the system.

It also allows you to give different people different passwords for network access instead of relying on the same guest account and having them all have access to the same folders. Here's where customization can be fun and convenient. To add multiple users to a share point, click the " " button below the "Users" list. This will present a list of available users from a variety of resources. These options are all user directory databases that hold information you can use to create "Sharing only" accounts for use with share points.

If you have a contact available, you can select it and then click the "Select" button or you can click "New Person". Providing a password will then give that person a "Sharing only" account, which they can use to log into your computer from the network and access any shared folders you've specified for that account in this case, the "Shared Stuff" folder. Keep in mind that "Sharing only" accounts will only have access to the computer via AFP only from another Mac ; Windows sharing currently does not support log-ins from these accounts.

Additionally, once you create a new sharing account, be it from an existing contact or by clicking the New Person button, you will add a new local account to your system that will show up in the "Accounts" system preferences as "Sharing only". Like any local account Sharing only or otherwise , you will need to use the Accounts system preferences to remove it once it's been created.

Now that you've got your shared folder set up, you can log into your system to access the folder from another computer on the network. On a Mac running Leopard, your system should appear in the Finder sidebar, or in the network browser by clicking the More button on the sidebar if available. Select the computer, and by default the current system will try to log in using the current user account. If the credentials are correct, then it will work, but if not it will revert to the guest account.

You can change credentials by clicking "Connect As" and providing new credentials in the log-in dialog box. Enable User Account Sharing. Just below the 'Share files and folders using SMB' option that you enabled with a check mark in the previous step is a list of the user accounts currently active on your Mac.

Now that SMB file sharing is enabled, you still have one more step to complete if you want to use Guest Sharing. Apple created a special Guest user account specifically for file sharing, but the account is disabled by default.

Before anyone, including you, can log in to SMB file sharing as a guest, you must enable the special Guest account. Enable the Guest User Account. Click the lock icon in the bottom left corner.

When prompted, supply your administrator username and password. If you're logged in with an administrator account, you will only need to supply the password. You have now configured your Mac to share folders or user accounts using SMB, the file sharing protocol used by Windows, Linux, and Unix computers.

One annoying thing I've noticed when file sharing with Windows machines is that the shared folders sometimes disappear from Windows XP's Network Places. One way around this intermittent problem is to use Windows XP's Map to Network Drive option to assign your shared folder s to network drives. This makes Windows think the shared folders are hard drives, and seems to eliminate the disappearing folders issue.

Map Shared Folders to Network Drives. Use the dropdown menu in the 'Drive' field to select a drive letter. I like to label my network drives starting with the letter 'Z' and working backwards through the alphabet for each shared folder, since many of the letters at the other end of the alphabet are already taken. You will now see a list of all your shared folders. Your shared folders will now appear on your Windows computer as hard drives that you can always access via My Computer.

Home Windows General Windows How-tos. General Windows. Last Updated: Sep 24, 7 Minute Read. Reply 2. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.

Topher Kessler. June 28, p. In setting up remote log-in, the system may show the IP address but you can also use the local bonjour name. In addition, be sure at least one user is permitted to access the SSH service. Once enabled, you can log into the system using an SSH client, which in most Unix terminals will be a command similar to the following: ssh username hostname In most cases the host name will either be the fully qualified domain name of the server if one is assigned to it, or it can be the IP address of the server.

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