Mac/PC can't see each other

Straitsfan

Registered
I'm going to start this myself, because searching isn't getting me anywhere on any of the sites I've been to.

I have a mac, which is my main machine, and a PC running XP service pack three. I have a book called 'Mac OS X leopard the missing manual' by david pogue. He talks about how easy it is for the two machines to see each other...

Trouble is, nothing works. I follow the instructions, but nothing happens. Every time i try to connect to server and use the pc's ip address, the connection fails. There is another window that says some of the data to the connection to "smb://(ip address) could not be read with an error code of 36).

has anyone had these problems and can anyone help me out? I'm learning about this stuff and really want to understand these things.
 
Error -36 is supposedly an I/O error.
Can you try those alternative methods of connection, i.e. smb with Terminal, or CIFS, or FTP..? Do those work or come with the same error?
The threads I link to contain the steps for trying.
 
I haven't been able to find these steps in the links. Can you tell me what I need to type to try to connect with SMB in Terminal?
 
Please check the following as bare minimum troubleshooting:
1) TCP/IP - 1.1) Does Ping between the 2 machines Works ?
1.2) If Ping works then try something like telnet from Windows to Mac
1.3) Check if your firewalls are enabled on windows and Mac? If firewall(s) are enabled, you need to check the traffic policy which permits/blocks certain ports or protocols etc.
2) What kind of services you wish to access between each other?
3) Are you trying to use SAMBA to share files between Mac and Windows?
 
Yes. I've pinged one machine to the other and they're both receiving.

I've never used telnet before, and the man pages don't explain things clearly -- or I guess I should say that I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the terms on the page. (Still learning UNIX).

Both firewalls are off -- I'm on leopard 10.5.7 and in the security pane I tried allowing all incoming connections, but that didn't help either. I'm not sure how/where I can set the parameters for certain applications-ftp, web sharing and file sharing are all allowed in the firewall pane of security, and there's nothing else to change in it.

I'm just trying, right now, to learn how all this stuff works -- just practical experience. I'd like to be able to share files between the two machines, jsut to see how it's done and that I can do it.

Is SAMBA the same as SMB? I can't find anything named SAMBA on my mac, if they're different from one another.
 
Is SAMBA the same as SMB? I can't find anything named SAMBA on my mac, if they're different from one another.

Yes. Samba is the project that allows Unix-based machines (like Mac OS X) to access and share with Windows PCs using SMB/CIFS. It comes built-in with Mac OS X.
 
I got what you doing now. Here you go:

1) Telnet is a unix program/service which lets you login into a unix server/machine on a network(LAN/WAN whatever :) )
By default telnet is enabled as a unix service. But you would not be allowed to login as "root" user remotely - that said you can always login on the unix server as root on the physical machine itself.
in your case ensure that the ip addresses and netmask are in the same IP class and subnet. for ex: assign PC with 192.168.10.10/255.255.255.0 and assign Unix machine with 192.168.10.20/255.255.255.0

Ways to overcome this - create a normal user, set his password. from a remote machine type this:
telnet <ip address of the unix server>
login: fooboo (whatever username u created on unix server)
password: (type your password here. unix doesnt displays stars (****) like windows - no password guessing - unix security u see)

if you entered the above credentials correct (username/password), you will see your unix prompt (one like MS-DOS prompt):
$fooboo>

Voila!!! now that you are logged into the unix server remotely from any other machine, you can do a whole lot. you logged in as a normal user "fooboo" and now you want to do system administration as "root" user. Use the "su" unix command to act as "SuperUser" for time being.
$fooboo> su
password:<type your root password here>
#root> now you are "root" user and be careful henceforth, since you just got a "Samurai" Sword in your hands....watch your neck and eyes....

*****
Strange World of File Sharing:

Unix and Windows have their own protocols to share files in their respective environments.

Unixes invented file sharing decades ago - Network File System(NFS)
Windows followed much later - SMB (Server Message Block)

Unix to Unix file sharing - NFS
Windows to Windows file sharing - SMB (now called as CIFS)

So if you want to share files between these 2 worlds, you need something in between which can do the "translation" of the 2 protocols. Hence there is this project called as SAMBA. SAMBA is a software available on various OSes.
PS-You have something like a SAMBA server and a SAMBA client. In your case you can install SAMBA on your windows machine and make it as the SAMBA server and hence your Unix machine becomes a SAMBA client. You can also do otherwise, but you avoid doing it till you become proficient with unixes of the world.

SAMBA server will let you access CIFS/NFS file shares on your network and clients can read/write files on those shares.

My Recommendation - buy a book or download basic unix tutorials from internet before you get in file sharing etc..

Cheers and all the best

Regards,
RiSK
 
I'm going to start this myself, because searching isn't getting me anywhere on any of the sites I've been to.

I have a mac, which is my main machine, and a PC running XP service pack three. I have a book called 'Mac OS X leopard the missing manual' by david pogue. He talks about how easy it is for the two machines to see each other...

Trouble is, nothing works."

Well the web sites you should look at are Connecting a Macintosh running Leopard (10.5) to SBS 2003 (look at all three pages), Sharing files between a Windows Vista Home Edition PC and a Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5 and since you are using such older technology Sharing files between a Windows XP PC and a Mac running OS 10.4.x to mix and match to your setup for sharing.

Finally the last thing to remember is to use the same EXACT Time server (in OS X Leopard/Tiger look at System Preferences->Date & Time. On XP it is in the Date Time Control panel.
 
I'm running Leopard 10.5.7. I know the external IP address of my mac. I can ping localhost and get a response. If I ping using the external IP address, it does not find my mac. I have check Security and it is not in stealth mode and I allow all incoming connections. I have no firewall running. I am using Apple's Airport Extreme connected to Comcast and they do not block port 80 for instance. Yet, telnet my.ip.address 80 does not give me a connection as telnet localhost 80 does ( I am running a web server on port 80 ). I also use a program called Jaadu from my iPhone and it connects fine and gives me a VNC connection to share screens!

Driving me crazy!

Any suggestions?
 
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