Launching the Web & File Admin Program
The Web & File Admin Program is used to access all server settings,
and users & group information.
- You can open the Web & File Admin program through ASIP Manager,
or by double-clicking its icon in the AppleShare IP 6.0 folder.
- You'll be prompted for administrator name and password. The administrator password provides a level of security to your
AppleShare IP server. Without the password, a user cannot open
the administrator program, where user logins are created, privileges
enabled or passwords set.
The administrator's name and password is the same as that entered
in the "File Sharing" control panel (in "Network Identity" area),
and can also be used by the administrator to log in remotely.
For additional security, you can't change the administrator's
password in the File Sharing control panel when the file server
software is loaded. You can change it within the Web & File Admin
program, but you'll need the password to open this application.
Forget the password? Use extension manager to temporarily diasable the ASIP Registry
extension, and restart the computer. Open the File Sharing control
panel, and enter a new password. Enable the ASIP Registry extension,
and restart again.
Starting & Stopping Web Services
The Web & File Server is started and stopped from the Server menu
of the Web & File Server Admin program.
You can also stop the server by quitting the Server application.
Whenever stopping service or disconnecting users, you are given
an opportunity to set a number of minutes before termination and
send a message to connected users. This allows them time to close
any open files they may have. If you change your mind, you can
also cancel the shut down, by selecting that menu item from the
Server menu. Connected users will receive a message indicating
that they will no longer be disconnected.
This dialog box, as in previous versions of AppleShare file server
software, foils attempts to perform an unattended shut down of
the server, for example, so that all files could be backed up.
Dynamic RAM Allocation
Customers have asked AppleShare IP engineers to allow for more
concurrent connections to the server. In response to this request,
AppleShare IP 6.0 will now allow up to 500 concurrent connections
if the two following conditions are met:
- The server is a G3 with at least 128 MB of RAM installed.
- There is at least 12MB of RAM available--above and beyond what
has been reserved for other applications (via the cache setting, see below)--when Web & File Services are started.
There is no visible indication of whether or not the maximum number
of connections allowed at a particular time is 250 or 500.
Configure Web & File Server Settings
Select Web & File Server Settings...from the Server menu.
This is where you control settings for:
- Appleshare
- Cache
- FTP
- General
- Idle User Disconnect
- Password
- Serialization
- Web Server
- Web Plugins
- Windows File Sharing
Each topic is discussed more fully below:
AppleShare
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- Enable File Server Multihoming over AppleTalk. Multihoming enables the file server to have a presence on more
than one AppleTalk network, without the need for routers. For
example, if your server had numerous network interfaces, such
as LocalTalk network on the printer port, Ethernet network on
built-in ethernet, and another Ethernet network on an ethernet
card, turning on multihoming would allow all three networks to
see and communicate with the server. Multihoming does not provide
routing, so devices on the separate networks would not be able
to see each other; but they could all see the server.
- Enable clients to connect over TCP. This enables AFP (AppleTalk Filing Protocol) over a TCP/IP connection.
If this option is set, when the client selects the server in the
Chooser, the server sends its IP address to the client. Behind
the scenes, if the client is configured for TCP/IP, the client
will attempt the server connection using TCP/IP instead of AppleTalk
(TCP/IP connections are normally more efficient, and thus faster
than AppleTalk connections).
Possible problem: If there is no IP connectivity between the server
and the client, there may be a short period where nothing appears
to happen; the client is waiting for a timeout (i.e., it will
wait for a response from the server for a certain period of time
before giving up). After the timeout it will connect to the server
using AppleTalk. This is not a common occurrence, but might occur
in a situation where the server has more than one network interface;
it can only do IP over one of those interfaces. The new Appleshare
3.8 client allows you to cancel connections that are taking too
long.
TIP: Users can force an AppleTalk connection by holding down the Option
key when selecting the server in the Chooser.
- File server logon greeting. This allows you to set a message that will be sent to AppleShare
users when they first log on to the server.
This message can also be changed within the File Server application:
Choose "Set Greeting…" from the Server menu.
Cache
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The AppleShare cache improves performance by caching information
into memory, and thus reducing wait times for data to be read
from, or written to, server volumes.
By default, the server is set to use ALL but 1 MB of memory for
caching. If left with this setting, the System Heap on the server
would grow as file sharing was used, until the maximum cache size
(=total memory - 1MB) had been reached. After that point, the
least-used information stored in the AppleShare cache makes way
for the new information.
If you need to run other services on the Appleshare file server,
you can limit the amount of memory it will use by changing the
"Reserved memory for other applications" setting to a higher number.
Setting it as high as it will go will restrict the AppleShare
caches to a minimum file and directory cache, part of a 6MB memory
pool the file server will allocate on startup (i.e., when Web
& File Services start up, you may notice the system heap increasing
by approximately 6 MB.)
TIP: The Cache can be reset (all data flushed out) in the Web & File
Server application. This may allow you to free up enough memory
to launch a needed application without quitting the Web & File
Services. Choose "Reset Cache" under the Server menu of the Web
& File Server or Admin application. It may take a minute or two
for the memory used by the cache to be released.
FTP
Checking "Enable FTP Service" (File Transfer Protocol) will allow
clients to access files using an FTP client, such as Fetch or
their web browser. All access privileges set up for AFP connections
will still apply.
"Anonymous FTP" is similar to guest access on the File Server;
anyone can login without a name and password. To enable anonymous
FTP for the ASIP server, open the user called "Guest" and check
the Anonymous FTP checkbox (described more fully in next section
on Users & Groups). Unless anonymous FTP access is enabled, clients
will need to enter their user name and password (with URL ).
- If using an application like Fetch, you'll find fields for username
and password. If using anonymous FTP, its common to use "anonymous" as the username and your email address as your password.
- If using a web browser to connect, you can specify your username
and password in the URL, for example
ftp://username:password@your.servername.com
or simply enter your name and password when prompted.
If using anonymous FTP, you can simply use the URL
ftp://your.servername.com
General
- Web & File Server Name: This name is the same as that set in the File Sharing control
panel, and is the name users will see in the Chooser when selecting
the server. You can change it while the file server is running;
changes take effect immediately.
- Start Web & File Server on System Startup: Will automatically launch the Web & File Server application
every time the system reboots. This information is stored in the
Users & Groups data file.
- File Server/FTP Client/Guest Connections: Allows you to set a maximum number of connections. You may want
to restrict the number of users that can log in at any one time,
to ensure a certain level of performance. You have the option
of restricting all file server clients, or just guests.
Idle User Disconnect
This was a frequently requested feature. You can disconnect users
if they've been idle for a specified period of time. You can decide
whether this applies to registered users, administrators, or just
guests, and you can send them a message upon disconnect
Note you can also omit users who have files open, to avoid data
loss.
This feature is especially useful if you want to limit the maximum
number of concurrent users; you can prevent people from staying
logged on indefinitely, tying up one of your connections.
Password
- Disabling logins after X many failed attempts, and requiring a minimum number of characters are security enhancements.
Be careful when setting the value for disabling login after so
many failed attempts; if you make this value too low, you'll be
barraged by absent-minded clients who disabled their own login
by running through their repertoire of usual passwords.
Keep in mind that the client software for certain types of access
(FTP, Web) will not support messaging from the server, informing
them that their password has expired or their login has been disabled.
- When you 'enable users to save password for automatic log on', clients can go to the Chooser and click a checkbox to automatically
mount that server volume at system startup time.
Information on the volume, plus users name and/or password are
stored in the AppleShare Prep file in the System Folder:Preferences
folder on the client). When only the user's name is saved, the
client is prompted to enter the password at system startup; if
both name and password are saved, they automatically log in. This
is a security risk. If data security is a priority, do not check
this box. The "Save My Name and Password" option will then be
disabled, as shown above.
If users have already saved their name and password for login,
they will continue to be able to login automatically; you'll need
to delete their AppleShare prep file on the client machine to
prevent it.
Serialization
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This is where you can see what your serial number is, or remove
the serial number to add a new one. (You cannot list more than
one serial number here.)
The serial number is stored in both the Users & Groups data file,
and in Easy Set Up Preferences. When copying a U&G data file to
another server that will run Web & File Services, the serial number
should be changed in the other server immediately. Web & File
Services will not startup if a duplicate serial number is detected
on the network. Only the Web & File Services component of AppleShare
IP looks for a serial number, so there will be no problem moving
the Users & Groups data file to a server that will run only Mail
Services or Print Services.
When duplicate serial numbers appear on the network, the server
administrator should make every attempt to locate the renegade
server and disable it, or enter a different serial number in it.
Web
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- Enable Web Service allows clients to acccess html files on the server.
- Client Connections allows you to specify the maximum number of Web connections that
will be accepted.
- Enable Web Log will cause events to be written to a text file. Web logs can
be used for troubleshooting, or simply for tracking Web services.
Writing to a web log may affect overall server performance.
- Enable directory listing will list the files and folders in a directory, similarly to
as they appear in a Finder window. This feature is useful when
you want visitors to be able to download or upload files in that
directory (much like how Apple Software Updates works). If there
is a file in the directory named "index.html", the page will be
downloaded to the client instead of the directory being displayed.
- Current Web Folder This is the folder in which all your html files reside. Visitors
browsing your web sites will normally only be able to access directories
and files within the Web Folder; other data on the server will
not be accessible to them, even if it is in shared volumes.
You will need to set access privileges on this folder to allow
visitors to access it. The folder does not need to be made a share
point.
If you want your web visitors to be able to access files not in
the Web Folder, you can do so by:
- Current Default Home Page File: this file is the one that will be served to visitors to your
site, if they specify no other directory or page.
Web Plug-ins
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Plug-ins are like extensions to Web service; they add functionality.
ASIP 6.0 supports W*API (Application Program Interface) 1.2, making
it compatible with most third-party plug-ins.
Technical support for Plug-ins are provided by the third-party
software developers.
Windows File sharing
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This is where you can enable SMB (Server Message Block), the type
of file sharing built into Windows 95, NT and other clients.
Give the server a valid Windows network host name (less than or
equal to 13 characters, generally avoiding punctuation and special
characters), and a valid workgroup name or Windows NT domain name.
TIP: If practical, make the Windows network host name for your AppleShare
IP server match its unqualified DNS host name. For example, if
your DNS has an entry for your server as "asip1.mycompany.com",
give your AppleShare IP server the Windows network host name of
"asip1". This will help solve some name resolution issues (described
in the Related Topic "More on SMB")
Tip: If any Windows NT domains are available on the subnet, use one
as AppleShare IP's workgroup name. This helps with cross-subnet
network browsing, because NT domains can cross subnets, but workgroups
cannot.
Related Topics
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