QUESTION :
What is the easiest way for a Mac to access files on a PC?
I used to find out the local IP of that PC (which can change after a few days), such as 192.168.1.5, and then
in Mac’s Finder app
Go -> Connect to Server
in the
Server Address:
box
type in
smb://192.168.1.5
Now I know I can just type in the name of the computer directly, such as
smb://peter
smb://bookroom
So there is no need to find the local IP first. But is there a better way? Any method such as viewing on a PC, where there are icons of “Peter” and “Bookroom” that let you directly click on them?
ANSWER :
FWIW: My Mac just knows about my PC (shows up under “network” in finder).
I looked at a network capture of my Mac starting up and it queries netbios looking for computers. (I’m running Leopard OS X 10.5.8)
What you can do is create an Alias for those server mounts you created. When you double click on them it will log you in.
Do the systems show up in the Finder’s sidebar under Shared? If so, that would work… If not, then you could make an Applescript that would mount the Windows systems… And place it in the Accounts –> Login items…
Let me know if your interested in the Applescript for it…
You can use shares on Windows and mount these shares from your Linux system as a Samba file system volume. To make things easier, add it to a shell script on your desktop so you can double click it to mount.
example:
mount -t smbfs -o username=Administrator,password=pass //computer/C$ /mnt/
this will mount the Windows PC’s C drive under /mnt. You can also add it to fstab and mount them on boot:
//computer/C$ /mnt/ smbfs auto,gid=users,fmask=0664,dmask=0775,iocharset=iso8859-15, credentials=/etc/sambapasswords 0 0
make sure to add the username and password to /etc/sambapasswords as well.
username = Administrator
password = pass
to secure your passwords to only allow root access:
chown root:root /etc/sambapasswords
chmod 600 /etc/sambapasswords