This excerpt taken from MWMS, 5th Edition:
Cross-Platform Networking
For communications with PCs, nothing beats a network. You can share files, send e-mail, share printers, and do a host of other activities by sending electrons over thin cables. The biggest cross-platform network on earth, of course, is the Internet. It connects Mac, Windows, UNIX, and other kinds of computers throughout the world, 24 hours a day. Not only that, but the servers—the computers that host Web sites, distribute e-mail, and serve files via FTP—are a mix of UNIX, Windows NT, and (in surprisingly large numbers) Macs. You can’t tell which operating system is running a particular Web site—and as far as you, the Web surfer, are concerned, it doesn’t matter.
The local networks in an office or school are similar in principle to the Internet, and sometime even use the same technology. Most often, Macs and PCs are connected by Ethernet wiring; Ethernet is a cross-platform cabling standard. But although the wiring is the same, the software is different. Macs sometimes get barred from the network fun by network software products that don’t support the Mac. Fortunately, persistence and a little knowledge is all you need to connect to such Windows-only networking schemes.
A Protocol Primer
To get two computers communicating, either for file-sharing, e-mail, or any other task, they have to use the same set of protocols. You can think of protocols as rules of the road—stop on red, go with green—that computers obey when sending data over wires. It doesn’t matter if the computers are Macs, Windows, or UNIX; as long as they’re communicating using the same protocols, they’ll understand each other. If you really want to get your Mac talking to Windows machines, you’ll have to delve into the tech-speak of protocol-ese; here goes.
Protocols come in what you might call layers. At the bottom layer are basic transport protocols that establish communications. On top of that are protocols that provide services—file servers, e-mail service, Web service, remote access service, and so on. Ethernet wires can carry multiple protocols at the same time—which is fortunate, because today’s computers often use different protocols for different tasks. Your Mac might send AppleTalk signals to print, and TCP/IP signals to access the Internet. All that’s necessary for Macs and PCs to communicate is that they speak the same protocols. Here are the most basic transport protocols used today:
■AppleTalk: AppleTalk has been a standard Mac networking protocol since 1984. AppleTalk is the language spoken by network printers; it’s also the protocol used for the Mac’s built-in File Sharing feature (again, see Chapter 35). PCs normally don’t speak AppleTalk—unless you equip them with add-on software.
■TCP/IP: TCP/IP is the most widely used set of protocols in the world—it’s the language of the Internet, and is becoming more and more common on local networks as well. Mac OS, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT all come with TCP/IP software.
■IPX/SPX: This technical-sounding item is Novell’s set of protocols for its NetWare networking system. Although Novell’s products and customers have been moving towards TCP/IP, the world’s offices are still filled with IPX networks. Macs can participate on NetWare IPX networks using a software kit from Novell called NetWare Client for Macintosh software, which includes a control panel called MacIPX.
■NETBEUI: A common IBM protocol used in DOS and Windows for small networks, NETBEUI was used in such networking products as Microsoft LAN Manager, Windows for Workgroups, IBM PCLAN and LAN Server. If this is what your office uses, you’re out of luck—no software lets Macs communicate via NETBEUI.
Putting PCs on a Mac Network
When adding a few PCs to a mostly-Mac network, it makes the most sense to adopt the PCs to your network rather than the other way around. This usually means adding the AppleTalk protocol to the PCs. You can do this with one of two products for Windows: PC MacLAN (from Miramar) or COPSTalk (from Cops). Both let Windows access Macs that have File Sharing turned on, plus dedicated Mac AppleShare servers. PC MacLAN, in fact, even lets Macs access the Windows machines. PCs running either PC MacLAN or COPSTalk can print to Mac Postscript printers on the AppleTalk network, and Macs can print to any Postscript printers connected to the Windows PCs.
Using an AppleTalk product for a cross-platform network also makes sense if you’re connecting a few Macs and a few PCs together, and your background is mostly Macintosh. Because AppleTalk is a plug-and-play, self-configuring protocol, it’s easier to set up and run PC MacLAN or COPSTalk than to tangle with the products discussed in the next section.
Macs on PC networks
AppleTalk doesn’t make much sense when you want to add Macs to an established PC network. Nor does adding software to a Windows NT server, when it’s just a few Macs in a mostly Windows environment. Instead, you should adapt the Macs by installing special software on them. DAVE (from Thursby) is software that adds a Mac to a Microsoft network using the TCP/IP protocol. Macs thus equipped can log onto standard Windows NT “domains.” To the Mac user, PCs with Microsoft file sharing turned on become visible in the Chooser; you select and log on to them just as you would on a standard Mac AppleTalk network.
DAVE also lets the Macs share their hard drives with the PCs on the network. The PC users can log onto DAVE-equipped Macs just as they would ordinarily log onto other Windows machines. Configuring DAVE on the Mac is usually more complex than Mac networking; some knowledge of PC networking is very helpful. So is Thursby’s manual, which walks you through the set-up procedure. If the existing PC network runs the Novell NetWare networking system, you can add your Mac to the network by installing NetWare Client for Macintosh (or its more recent incarnation, IntranetWare Client for Mac OS). The Macs can use either the Novell IPX protocol or TCP/IP; the client doesn’t interfere with normal AppleTalk functions. For example, you can log into the network server through IPX, browse the Internet using TCP/IP, and print using
AppleTalk. The Novell client software lets your Mac access the Novell Directory Services (NDS) to log into file servers and printer functions.
Connecting to Windows NT Server
Windows NT Server, yet another common Windows-based networking software kit, comes with software called Windows NT Services for Macintosh (SFM). (Although SFM comes on the Windows NT Server CD-ROMs, it must be installed and configured separately.)
Like PC MacLAN, SFM installs on the NT Server, and gives Macs access to the server using AppleTalk. Once you’re hooked up this way, you log onto the NT server through the Chooser, just as you would on an all-Mac system. Unlike PC MacLAN, the SFM file service is one-way—Windows PCs can’t access the Macs on the network.
Macs also use the printers connected to Windows NT servers—sort of. If the printer is not a Postscript printer, then Macs can only print in black and white and at 300 dpi—even if the printer supports color and higher resolutions. On the other hand, SFM has the Microsoft logo on it, which makes it attractive to many of the people who run the networks in today’s companies.
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