asked on

Leopard sharing not working properly

Hi guys, so I'm trying to share a folder in my home folder (inside of my pictures folder specifically) and when I share the folder it can't be seen on other macs or windows pc's. If I share a folder outside of my home folder then I can access it, but if the shared folder is in my user folder then it won't show up over the network. This is when using guest sharing.

The other problem is if I authenticate the sharing and connect using my username and password then it shares my entire hard drive. It doesn't only share the folders I have shared specifically.

How can I give access to specific folders with guest access and how can I make it so connecting with my username doesn't share my entire hard drive?

Thanks in advanced for the help guys, this is getting really frustrating for me

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Eoin OSullivan

membership

Create a free account to see this answer

Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.

See answer

poko2121

ASKER

ya I used to use sharepoints on tiger. But I am having this problem not only with windows sharing but also with AFP sharing. the guest account can only see files that are outside of my home folder. And if I authenticate with my user name then for some reason my entire hard drive shows up.

Now, I've tried making a regular alias outside my home folder. The alias shows up in the network browser on the other mac, but I can't see any files in it. I am assuming that a hard link is different from a regular alias...I got to read more about that.

So I'm having this problem with windows and with mac? How can there be such a big bug?

Thanks

Eoin OSullivan

Don't use plain apple aliases ..you need what is known as a symbolic link.

Have you tried creating a specific username and password and giving them access to the share. In the Sharing Preference Pane?
If you give someone your username and password .. then they are logging in as you so they SHOULD see everything.

poko2121

ASKER

ya but shouldn't they still only see things that I have set as "shared?"

what I did was make a new user for sharing like you said, and it seemed to be working fine for afp sharing,
but apparently from windows I can't browse the computer using a sharing only account, so I just made a real account and it seems to be working for both.

Do you still see any benefit to creating symbolic links?

Thanks

Eoin OSullivan

If the new user account sorts it .. then that's enough.

Don't bother with the symbolic links.

The guest user function in SAMBA sharing in OSX does not work well as you discovered.

As for your question "ya but shouldn't they still only see things that I have set as "shared?""
The simple answer is NO .. when you give someone your default username and password they have full access to all the resources that you have "ownership" of. If you're the default user on the Mac this will include most folders. User level restrictions really only kick in for secondary users .. that is why I recommend creating another user account either in File Sharing or an overall User Account in the System Preferences (this has more functionality)

poko2121

ASKER

Got it. Thanks so much for the help. I'm surprised this whole sharing thing is so confusing. Hopefully it'll get sorted out soon.

Thanks again for all the help eoinosullivan