Re: An Appletalk Query

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Bart <pilgrimer@my-deja.com> wrote:

> I have 1 LC III with a 201 meg hard drive (formated as 1 big HFS
> partition,and  1 32 meg ProDOS partition), [snip]

> The main HFS partiton I can share, but the ProDOS one I cannot.  Why?

Because File Sharing and AppleShare only let you share HFS (also HFS+ if
you have Mac OS 8.1), and possibly MS-DOS (I don't think I've ever
tried).

Why does it have this restriction?  Mainly because the AppleShare server
implementations on the Mac expect the host file system to be able to
store all attributes of a Macintosh file, including the full 31
character filename.  This is not possible on a ProDOS volume, but is on
MS-DOS (via long filename mechanisms).

As far as the user is concerned, an AppleShare server running on a
ProDOS volume would probably be OK for an Apple II client, but a Mac
client would not be happy.

In any case, there is no point even trying to use a ProDOS partition for
sharing files, since any Apple II is perfectly happy to access a file
server with the Apple II files on an HFS partition, as long as the name
of the volume (or top level shared folder) complies with ProDOS naming
restrictions, with the same restriction applying to all subfolders and
files that need to be accessed from the Apple II.

The client machine is completely unaware of the file system used on the
server: the AppleShare protocol (AFP) uses a virtual file system, and a
translator runs on each client machine to convert between local
operating system mechanisms and AFP mechanisms.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P O Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand