Opened port 548, didn't help. Now I can't even see the machines on the
network. I'm not sure what changed. What are all the basic settings that are
needed to enable a Mac to VPN to a w2k server and browse the file shares?
Quite a few things could be blocking your access, but without knowing your
network any advice would almost be shooting in the dark. But here are some
steps that may help.
1. You've already established a VPN connection. Test that you have IP
connectivity by using the Network Utility found in /Applications/Utilities
to "ping" the server you want to connect to.
Be sure to ping a few ways to see what will work for you. Ping just the
server name: "servername". If that doesn't work try the fully qualified
domain name: "servername.company.com". Finally, ping by IP address if you
can't ping by name.
If IP address works, but names do not, then you may need to go to Apple menu
--> System Preferences... --> Network --> your network connection --> TCP/IP
and verify your network settings. Check that no Search Domains have been
added and that no DNS servers have been manually entered. If so, these will
override anything received from DHCP. Or you may need to manually enter your
network settings here if DHCP is not providing this information.
2. Be sure that port 548 is open in your firewall. This allows AFP (Mac's
file sharing protocol) traffic between the Mac and your Windows server. This
is not AppleTalk, which may or may not be supported over your VPN
connection.
AppleTalk allows a Mac to _browse_ a network in search of server and printer
resources, but to connect to a server the Mac will use AFP over IP. If that
fails, it will attempt to use AFP over AppleTalk if AppleTalk is enabled on
the Mac.
3. Finally, to avoid making the Mac user _browse_ your network, which may or
may not work, instruct him to use the connection strings that I mentioned
earlier. To access his server he need to use the Finder's Go --> Connect to
Server menu and enter "afp://servername", "afp://servername.company.com" or
"afp://serverIPaddress".
If you're able to ping the server by any of these addresses but not able to
connect to the server then AFP is being blocked somewhere.
4. Alternately, your Mac user can trying connecting via SMB (Windows file
sharing) using "smb://servername", etc. If this works, have your Mac user
test files both at home and at work to verify they're still usable to him in
both locations. This method doesn't store Mac files the same way as AFP
would.
Hope this helps! bill
