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File sharing across 2 Lans (1 PC lan & 1 MAC lan

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ghost123uk

Technical User
Oct 31, 2002
57
GB

Hi all.

With no experience of MACS at all we have a question ! (tho not solely a MAC question - hence it being here !)

Situation =

A customer of ours has =

A MAC LAN / WAN network working fine.

A new Windows LAN / WAN all working fine.
This new network uses a NAS box as a central file store.
(This network was recently installed by us)

These 2 networks are in adjacent offices and at present are completely independent of each other.

Question = how best to connect the MAC networks server so it can share files on the NAS box (without it getting confused as to where it gets its broadband from etc)

note = I have not put this in the Appletalk forum as we no VEY little of MAC config and are hoping to get a "Windows friendly" answer !

JB - N.W. - UK....
If at first you don't succeed, keep at it until you can't even think straight !
 
The easiest thing that I can think of to do would be to use Samba on the MAC side, which would allow it to access the windows network. A quick search shows that Samba is available for Mac and the comments say that it "plays well".
 

Thanks for the input folks :)

The customer is wanting to keep the 2 networks separate other than a "shared space" on the NAS box. This is because the 2 networks belong to totally different departments. This is part of the problem we have to work out !

Our job was to install the new Windows based LAN & WAN so as to create this separate network.

I was considering using a shared "online storage" space (Humyo etc) but the slow speed of uploading largish graphics files to this space is likely to be unacceptable.

Any more ideas gratefully received :)

JB - N.W. - UK....
If at first you don't succeed, keep at it until you can't even think straight !
 
Are they on different subnets? Is there a router or other layer 3 device routing between the VLANs?

If they are all on the same vlan, you are already connected via layer 2 (data link layer) and therefore need no routing.

Network-wise, this needs to be done.

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!
 
@ burtsbees - thanks for the input friend,

Are they on different subnets? Is there a router or other layer 3 device routing between the VLANs?

If they are all on the same vlan, you are already connected via layer 2 (data link layer) and therefore need no routing.

Network-wise, this needs to be done.

They are on totally separate lans and need to stay separate (except for a share space on the NAS box) They will be on different subnets but we cannot, and do not want to touch the MAC network (except for allowing it access to a space on the NAS box, but not other parts of the new Windows lan)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@ Lemon13, again, thanks for taking the time to answer here :)

I was considering using a shared "online storage" space (Humyo etc) but the slow speed of uploading largish graphics files to this space is likely to be unacceptable.

have a look


Sorry, I must have worded that badly.
I meant to imply "online storage space hosted on the net by XYZ" as used for remote online backups etc, rather than a local storage box (which will / would be easily fast enough :) )

Funny how what seemed to be a minor issue is turning out to harder to sort than I imagined it would !!



JB - N.W. - UK....
If at first you don't succeed, keep at it until you can't even think straight !
 
how far away are the networks from each other? It sounds like you need a physical connection. Ie direct CAT5e or something. you could add a second NIC in each server and connect that way or if they are too far maybe a VPN from each business. then you can control what gets passed.

Kevin Wing
ACS- Implement IP Office
ACA- Implement IP Office
Carousel Industries
 
how far away are the networks from each other? - if they are too far maybe a VPN from each business. then you can control what gets passed.

Thanks for that kwing112000

They 2 VLANS are in adjacent offices.
(VPN etc is too slow for uploading the large graphics files they wish to share.)

It sounds like you need a physical connection. Ie direct CAT5e or something. you could add a second NIC in each server and connect that way

Yes that would be easy, except

A - The office setup that we have NOT been working on is all MAC and we know nothing about networking MACS

B - The offices setup we HAVE been working on does not have a server (it is simple workstations DHCP'ing off the router and a NAS box for data storage).



It looks like we are going to have to bow out of this one because of the MAC server !!

Thanks all

John B in the N.W. UK

JB - N.W. - UK....
If at first you don't succeed, keep at it until you can't even think straight !
 
Unless you have two different NIC's on the NAS box you aren't going to be able to share it across to different networks, there will be a requirement somewhere for the NAS to be on both networks, that's either done at the NAS itself or done on the network at a router\switch layer.

You would also want to make sure that the AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) is enabled on the NAS box so that the MACs can connect to it (yes SAMBA will work but as you aren't too aware of the way the MACs work you may be better off just enabling AFP instead).

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 
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