luke@tasis.utas.oz (Luke Visser) (05/11/89)
Apart from AppleShare what other file server software
is available for the Macintosh. I know of three other
and would appreciate information on them also. MacServe
(which may now be defunct?), TOPS (which I know little
about) and MacJanet (which I know nothing about).
I'd especially like info about MacJanet as I've been
told that it was specifically designed for the student
environment where AppleShare obviously wasn't.
Luke Visser
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UUCP: {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!munnari!tasis.utas.oz!lukecole@sas.UUCP (Tom Cole) (05/17/89)
In article <1037@tasis.utas.oz>, luke@tasis.utas.oz (Luke Visser) writes: > Apart from AppleShare what other file server software > is available for the Macintosh. I know of three other > and would appreciate information on them also. MacServe > (which may now be defunct?), TOPS (which I know little > about) and MacJanet (which I know nothing about). > > Luke Visser I am using TOPS myself, and really like it. It has several advantages over AppleShare:: o It doesn't require a dedicated server. Basically, TOPS lets you export any mounted volume on a TOPS server node to the network, which can be remotely mounted by any TOPS client. In the current version, all nodes in the Mac world are both servers and clients, I believe. o Because you can mount any volume, you can even do things like mount a DC2000 tape remotely if you have something like SuperMac's ULDataStream driver (comes with Network DiskFit, and I suppose DiskFit as well). o It is cheap for small networks. Macconnection sells it for around $150 a node. Note that if you are running 25 users on an Appleshare, the cost per user is lower for Appleshare. I run three Macs in my TOPS network, so the cost was a plus. o TOPS lets you export a folder on a disk as if it was a volume, so you can limit what parts of your disk are available to network users. You can also password protect folders/volumes that are remotely mounted. o The TOPS init file will automatically mount volumes for you at startup if you have volumes that are supposed to be generally available. o The next (soon to be released, I hope) version of TOPS is supposed to be fully AFP compliant, so you can run anything under tops that you can with Appleshare. Or so the trade journals imply. o If you have IBM PC's, VAXEN, Suns, or (I suppose) other flavors of Unix you can run TOPS on them as well, and share files that way. I have no experience with this. On an unrelated note, I just put Flashboxes on the three Macs and it makes a great deal of difference. This little gadget accelerates Localtalk-style communications up to a theoretical throughput of about 770kb. It makes TOPS using LocalTalk/FlashTalk feel about as fast as the old Apple HD20's, instead of like a floppy (LocalTalk being limited to about 230kb). The combination of TOPS and FlashBoxes is hard to beat for small networks. Disclaimer: I have no connection with Sun/TOPS except that I really love the products, and will by more in the future. Declaimer: Othello Tom Cole SAS Institute
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (05/22/89)
I would like to see two options added to TOPS to get rid of two annoying things that happen when other people mount folders from my hard disk. The first problem is that when someone does this, their Finder creates a desktop file in the folder. I recently went through my disk and found about 20 desktop files! This could be fixed with an option to tell TOPS to delete the desktop file when the folder is unmounted ( if it is not the root ). The second problem is that I don't want people with SEs and Plus's to mount my hard disk. When they do, all the files I keep at the bottom of my screen out on the desktop get moved around so they will fit on a tiny screen. This could be solved by an option that specifies the hardware configuration that a user must have to be able to mount something from TOPS. Tim Smith ps: part of this posting are to be taken with a :-). I'm not sure which parts, however.