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updated: 6/17/98

 

 

 

Installation & Use

Setting Up Privileges

This section will explain how to share folders and their contents on the server, and assign access privileges to them.

[Advanced]

Creating Share Points

A Share Point is a volume (disk or folder) that a user can access by mounting the shared volume on his desktop through the Chooser; everything inside the share point may be made available to users, using access privileges on the folders.

Setting up share points and access privileges is done from the Web & File Server Admin Program.

 

  • Select "Show Disks & Share Points" from the Server menu.

In this window you can view either the disks (i.e. volumes on the server's desktop), or only the volumes or folders that have already been set as share points.

 

  • With "Disks" selected, use the triangles to open volumes and navigate to a folder you want to share.

  • Select the folder, and click on the Privileges button.

    • TIP: Do not share the entire startup volume; certain data there, such as the ASIP applications and the mail folder, do not need to be shared, and some user may unwittingly move or delete important files. Instead, select a folder, give it a meaningful name if necessary (something that lets users know what type of data they might find within, such as "Classroom Assignments"). Then place everything that you want to share--other folders and/or files--inside that folder.

    • How many folders to share? You can have more than one share point on a server (in fact, you can have up to 100 share points), but keep the following in mind:

      • Clients will have to scroll through a list of volumes in the Chooser to select the one they want. A very long list here would be both annoying and confusing.

      • If clients need access to data in more than one shared folder, they'll have to return to the Chooser to reselect another volume. For convenience, try to keep all the data that your clients are likely to need during a single session in one share point.

Assign privileges

The privileges you can assign to folder on the server are as follows:

  • Read/Write: you can create new folders, new files, open files, make changes.

  • Read only: you can open files, but can't make changes. You also can't create new folders or files within that folder. (You can copy files down to your workstation, and make changes on them there.)

  • Write only: this privilege alone on a folder makes that folder a "drop box": users can drop things inside (write to the folder), but they can't open the folder to see what else is inside, or even to retrieve what they dropped in. One example of its use would be a drop box for classroom assignments. Only the teacher would have read access, students dropping off homework would only have write access to the folder.

    Do not give "write only" privileges to a share point; in order for users to mount the share point, they must have at least "read" privileges.

Once you click on the privileges button, you'll see a window similar to this one:

 

  • Use enclosing item's privileges. If this folder were inside another shared folder, this option would allow the folder to adopt the privileges of its parent folder. Also, with this flag set, the folder's privileges are called "inherited" or "adopted"; that means that it will always take on the privileges of the enclosing folders.

    Options for Owner, User/Group and Everyone are grayed out if they are being inherited from enclosing folder.

  • Set privileges of this item. Use this option if the folder is already within a share point, but you want to set the privileges differently than the enclosing folder's privileges. The privileges on this folder would then be "explicit", i.e., the privileges would stick with the folder as it was moved around on the server. It would not adopt or inherit the privileges of its parent.

  • Make this a share point and set privileges. This option is used to both create a share point and set the privileges for the top level of the share point. Keep these points in mind:

    • For anyone--guest or registered user--to access data anywhere inside the share point, they must have at least "read only" privileges to the share point, and every folder along the path to the data they need.

    • To keep the top level of the shared volume neat and organized, do not give users write privileges at that level. Allow them "read" privileges to the top level of the shared volume, and read/write privileges to subfolders.

  • Select an "Owner". By default, the owner of all folders on the server when you first set it up belong to the administrator, i.e., the user indicated as the owner of the server in the File Sharing control panel. You can change the owner name to another user (or group) if you wish, giving that user the ability to change access privileges on that folder. To assign a user or group ownership, drag the appropriate icon from the user/group list into the Owner field. Give owner "read/write" privileges.

  • Select a User/Group You can select one user or one group to have privileges to the folder. Select the level of privileges that user/group requires. Drag the appropriate icon from the user/group list into the User/Group field.The user/group field can also be left blank, if desired.

  • Everyone Privileges for "everyone" will affect any client on the server that can see the folder in question. It may encompass both guests (if guest access is allowed), and registered users. In short, it means "everyone else who can see this folder".

  • Make all enclosed folders like this one will work its way down through the hierarchy, giving all enclosed folders the same privileges as the parent. This button is grayed out until you save the changes made to the privileges on the folder.

    TIP: By default, the privileges on the enclosed folders will be explicit. Holding down the option key as you select this item give you the choice of making the privileges on enclosed folders explicit (they'll follow the folder around), or inherited (they'll change as the privs of the parent folder change). See the Related Topic on explicit and inherited privileges for more details.

  • Can't move, rename, or delete this folder keeps users from inadvertently making unwanted changes to the folder. The contents of the folder can still be moved, renamed or deleted if the user has "write" privileges; only the folder itself is protected by this flag.

 

Privileges for Applications

ASIP allows you to copy protect, lock, and set a concurrent user limit for applications on the server. By viewing the privileges for an application, rather than a folder, you will see the following:

 

    Note that setting an application's concurrent user limit only works with multi-launch applications (those written to permit more than one user to open it at a time). You will not be allowed to set a concurrent user limit for some applications that are not multi-launch; in any case, any application that is not multi-launch will return a dialog indicating that the application is in use when the second user attempts to launch it.

 

Related Topics