Re: [school-discuss] Re: [K12OSN] Supporting Macs on a Linux server

[Rasjid Wilcox <rasjidw@openminddev.net>]

> On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, David Bucknell wrote:
> > "If you do use Linux, do  you use it in a Macintosh environment
> > and how do you find the Netatalk solution working on your network for
> > older boxes versus OS X? Do you use Red Hat or YellowDog or what ever
> > distribution?

Mitel's SME Server (aka E-Smith, http://www.e-smith.org) can be set up in 
about 15 minutes, and happily shares to both windows and Mac in an easy to 
configure and consistent manner (although I've never actually tested the Mac 
side - no Macs available).

> > Do any of you find the NFS a good solution with Mac OS X or is it
> > still better for your school to still run an AppleTalk protocol versus
> > TCP/IP? "

I think you are getting two different things confused here.  NFS is a file 
shareing protocol, as is Samba (windows) and AFP (Apple File Protocol on 
Mac).  AppleTalk and TCP/IP are network protocols, which the file-sharing 
protocol sits on top of. As far as I know, Linux can speak AFP across both 
AppleTalk and TCP/IP.

As for NFS and Mac OS/X: NFS relys on having common user ID's across all 
machines.  In the Unix world this is can be done with NIS (aka YP, see 
http://www.linux-nis.org), and it relys on using common /etc/passwd, 
/etc/group files.  Mac OS/X uses /etc/passwd in a fundamentally different way 
to Linux (in particular, it does NOT use it to map user ID's to usernames), 
so my guess is that secure NFS from Linux to Mac would be hard.  That being 
said, I've never had any reason to try, and given that Linux can speak AFP 
quite happily, I'm unlikely to.

Cheers,

Rasjid.