Release Notes

Macintosh File Server (MFS) for Haiku
Version 1.7
Copyright © 2002-09, SomeGuy Software. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

1 Introduction
   1.1    What's supported
   1.2   What's not supported
   1.2.1   Currently unsupported AFP API's

2 Installation
   2.1    Getting MFS to start automatically
   2.2     The BeUAM

3 Configuring MFS
   3.1    Managing Users
   3.2   Creating a drop-folder
   3.3   Setting Permissions
    3.4   Setting the Server Name

4 Known issues
5 License
6 Support
7 Disclaimer
8 What's New

1 Introduction

Welcome to the Macintosh File Server (MFS) for Haiku! This multi-threaded server, written from the ground up for the BeOS/Haiku, will allow Macintosh clients to share files with a machine running the Haiku OS. Once MFS is installed, Mac clients can connect using their native AFP protocol to shares located on the Haiku machine.

1.1 What's Support
Currently, MFS implements the AFP 3.2 specification and is compatible with either Classic MacOS or Mac OS X clients. The only restriction is that the Mac clients must support AFP over TCP/IP (AFP 2.2 which first appeared in AppleShare 3.7.4 and later).

As of version 1.7, MFS supports the DHCAST128 user authentication method (UAM). This means that MacOS X clients can login to MFS using their own native password encryption implementation. So, there is no longer a need to enable clear text password support on MacOS X 10.5 systems and no longer a need for the BeUAM which has officially been deprecated as of this release. Note that with this support, you can now safely and securely login and change your passwords from any MacOS X system.

1.2 What's not supported
There is only a very rudimentary folder level security system provide in Haiku. You can only limit access to certain shares between three groups of users: Administrators, guests and users.See section 3 for a detailed description on how to configure your folders to restrict/grant access.

AppleTalk connections are not supported.

1.2.1 Currently unsupported AFP API calls
The following AFP API calls are not supported in MFS. Note that the absence of all the API's below does not affect the usability of this server with
Macintosh clients. The only reason I list these here is in case a developer tries to write a custom application that attempts to use these calls.

   FPOpenDir (not required)
   FPDirClose (not required)
   FPMapName (irrelevant since BeOS doesn't support users)
   FPSetVolParms (irrelevant since BeOS doesn't support a backup date)
   FPDeleteID (don't have too according to spec - not possible with Be file system)
   FPResolveID (don't have too according to spec - not possible with Be file system)
   FPExchangeFiles (not required)
   FPGetAuthMethods (irrelevant since BeOS doesn't support users)
   FPCatSearch (not required)
   FPCatSearchExt (not required)

NOTE: FPGetDirParms and FPGetFileParms have been deprecated and won't be supported.

2 Installation

To install MFS, just double click the installer.sh script from within tracker or run it from Terminal. It will place all the files in their correct locations. Specifically, it places the following files:

   home/config/bin/afp_server                   <--this is the AFP server service
   home/config/bin/MacFile                       <- this is the configuration utility
   home/config/add-ons/Tracker/CreateAfpShare   <- this is a Tracker add-on to easily create new shares
   home/config/be/Applications/afp_server       <--link
   home/config/be/Preferences/MacFile            <--link

2.1 Getting MFS to start automatically
As of version 1.6 for Haiku, the install script will automatically configure your UserBootscript if you choose to do so at installation time.If you did not choose to have the installer do this, you can either run the install script again (you won't lose any settings) or follow the instructions below.

To get MFS to start automatically on boot, you can manually edit your UserBootScript file. Just copy the following into your UserBootscript file located in home/config/boot.

#!/bin/sh
#

SCRIPTS=beos/system/boot
SERVERPATH=home/config/bin

launchscript() {
        if [ -f "/boot/$1" ]
        then
                . "/boot/$1"
        fi
}

start()
{
        if [ -f /boot/$1 ]; then
                /boot/$1 $2 &
        else
                echo There is no $1
        fi
}

launchscript $SCRIPTS/Netscript         # start up networking
start $SERVERPATH/afp_server

2.2 The BeUAM (Deprecated)
The BeUAM is no longer supported as it blocked MacOS X 10.5 clients from logging into MFS. If you installed it on your Mac system and wish to remove it, on your Mac, go to /boot/Library/Filesystems/Appleshare/Authentication and delete the BeUAM.uamx file. The server no longer offers support for the BeUAM to clients, so those that do have it installed, even on earlier MacOS X versions where it worked, will not use it anymore.

3 Configuring MFS

Once MFS is installed and running, you can use the MacFile preference application to configure:

   1. What directories you are sharing
   2. What users have access to your computer via AFP
   3. What message (if any) users will see when they log in
    4. What name for your computer AFP clients will see

3.1 Managing Users
MFS provides a rudimentary user authentication system. With the MacFile preference application you can allow only certain users to access your AFP shares by entering user names and passwords. You can also tell MFS who has admin privileges. Currently, "Admin Privileges" only means that users are listed as "owners" of the shares. This way, window positions and listing types are saved between logins. Admins also ALWAYS get full access to all shares regardless of how you configured the folders using the method below. If you are not an "Admin", you are basically just a normal user.

3.2 Creating a drop-folder
There are many instances where you may want to create a drop-folder that Mac clients can drop files into but cannot open or view. To do this in MFS easily, just name any folder "=DropFolder=" (without the quotes). Users without admin privileges will not be able to open or view this folder but can drop files into it. Admins will have full access to the folder.

3.3 Setting Permissions
MFS uses the Haiku's filesystem permission attributes to provide at least some rudimentary directory access control.Specifically, MFS uses the Posix permissions available in the filesystem to control access for guests and normal users.

Permissions are set as in the table below. Normal user permissions are reported to the Mac client as they are set by the "Group" column. Since groups are currently not supported in BeOS, we borrow these settings for normal user access permissions. Guest access is controlled by the settings in the "Other" column. In the example in Figure 1 below, Users have full read/write access to the sample directory and guests have just read only.

	Owner	Group/User	Other/Guest
Read	x	x	x
Write	x	x
Execute/View	x	x	x

Figure 1. Owners/Users: read/write, Guests: read only

The execute access settings are not understood by Macintosh clients, so we use this setting to determine whether or not Mac clients can view the files in a particular directory.

Below is an example of how you would create a drop folder if you don't want to use the naming convention described in the previous section. In the below example, users and guests can copy files into a particular directory, but cannot open it to view it's contents. Note that you do not want to apply these settings to the root directory of an MFS volume (the shared folder) otherwise users and guests will not be able to mount the volume.

	Owner	Group/User	Other/Guest
Read	x
Write	x	x	X
Execute/View	x

Figure 2. Owners: read/write/view, Users/Guests: write only

Admins continue to have full unrestricted access to all shares and directories on a particular server. The "Owner" bits are ignored at this time as their meaning is irrelevant.

3.4 Setting The Server Name
The AFP spec allows the use of a separate name for the server from the one that may be set as the machine/host name. This is lucky for us on Haiku or BeOS as there is currently no way to set the machine's name or host name (easily anyway). By default, MacFile will use the hostname of the machine, but you can set a more unique name via the MacFile preference application. Just choose Utilities->Set Server Name... from the preference application menu.

If you wish to revert back to the default system hostname, just press the "Default" button in the Set Server Name dialog.

4 Known issues

Performance: With the server hosted on my 1.0 Ghz. Pentium III running Haiku, a 3 Ghz. Intel iMac running Leopard saw throughputs of 2MB/sec. and 4MB/sec. for write and read operations respectively. That's pretty darn good!

Renaming files/dirs to long names: For files with long names (longer than 32 characters), you can read them from the server and copy them to the server. However, you cannot rename an existing file on the server to a longer name. I don't know why this is, the client stops the action without even making a request to the server, so this looks like a client issue.

Tested Clients: This server has only been tested with MacOS 7.6, 9.2.1, MacOS X 10.4 & 10.5 clients. Please let me know if any other clients work (or don't).

There appears to be a bug in the MacOS X AppleShare client that prevents the changing of passwords when the password is expired. This is supposed to be allowed but I cannot find a way around it.

5 License

You may use MFS for FREE. I wrote MFS because it filled a personal need, I hope someone else finds it useful too.

6 Support

Report any bugs or issues to someguysoftware@me.com. I cannot commit to answering all letters, but I can promise that I will read them all. I also cannot commit to implementing or fixing every request. I do this on my spare time and too often "real life" gets in the way.

7 Disclaimer

The term "Software" refers to the MFS applications, add-ons and documentation.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. The Software is provided on an "AS IS" basis, without warranty of any kind, including without limitation the warranties of
merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Software is borne by you. Should the Software prove defective, you and not SomeGuy Software assume the entire cost of any service and repair. This disclaimer of warranty constitutes an essential part of the agreement.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY, TORT, CONTRACT, OR OTHERWISE, SHALL SOMEGUY
SOFTWARE OR ITS SUPPLIERS OR RESELLERS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PERSON FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL,
INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK
STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES. IN NO EVENT WILL SOMEGUY
SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, EVEN IF SOMEGUY SOFTWARE SHALL HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.

8 What's New

Version 1.7

Server
- Added support for the DHCAST128 (SSL encryption) user authentication method (UAM) for login. This means that all MacOS X systems can now login to MFS using its own native encrypted password authentication. Supporting this requires that OpenSSL be installed on Haiku systems running MFS, but it looks like OpenSSL is supplied by default on the pre-alpha Haiku builds so it should not be an issue for anyone.
- Added support for much more stringent access checking based on user level (admin, guest, user).
MacFile Configuration
- Added default button in the custom server name dialog. The default uses the system's hostname.
- Fixed a bug with the "Save" button in the logon message configuration box in the MacFile configuration utility.
The BeUAM
- The installer will now stop sharing the BeUAM installation folder on systems and replace it with a MacUtilitiesFolder.
- The BeUAM is officially deprecated as of this release as it actually blocked MacOS X 10.5 clients from logging into MacFile when installed. Be sure to remove it from your MacOS X system as per section 2.2 above.

Version 1.6

Server
- Re-factored a lot of code to stabilize the server in the Haiku environment, mostly in the networking area.
- Added support for custom server names (see section 3.4 above).
- Had to change the name of the easy drop folder name to "=DropFolder=" since Haiku doesn't appear to like the Tilda key.
MacFile Configuration
- Re-factored the configuration UI to accommodate Haiku's default font and make it a little more resilient to font changes
- No longer will launch if the afp_server is not running, this prevents a weird UI state for the end user
- You can now set a custom server name via Utilities->Set Server Name...
- Fixed a bug where sending a message to clients didn't always work
CreateAfpShare Tracker Add-on
- Re-introduced the Tracker add-on to make sharing new folder shares easier from within the Tracker
Install Script
- The installer will now automatically update the UserBootscript so the server will launch automatically at startup
- You can now fully uninstall MacFile by using the same script you used to install it
- Updated for new files/binaries