Access Connect can be configured to make a Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) available to Macintosh clients. In addition to the server side configuration, installation of the Access Connect Zidget dashboard widget (for Mac OS X 10.4 or later), or either a client application or an update to a configuration file (for Mac OS X 10.5 or later) is required for each Macintosh client that requires access to DFS. Details on the required client side configuration can be found in the Installing and Configuring the Zidget Client article.
DFS support also requires two settings on the Security tab of the Settings dialog. Valid Directory Services credentials must be entered and Support UNIX Permissions and ACLs must be enabled for DFS to function.
To add a namespace, click the Add button. You will be prompted to enter the path of your DFS namespace. Access Connect will attempt to verify that the DFS namespace entered is valid. If it is not valid, you will be prompted to correct the DFS namespace path.
Access Connect will automatically create a DFS virtual root volume in the ‘Access Connect DFS Volumes’ folder, located in the Access Connect program directory. This volume will contain links to target servers in the DFS namespace and will be added as a shared volume with a volume name matching your DFS domain or host server name. The location where DFS virtual root volumes are created can be modified by selecting Advanced on the DFS settings tab.
You are returned to the DFS tab, which is updated with the newly added namespace’s information. You will find your namespace listed on the left and the target servers in that namespace listed on the right. The Valid column in the Namespaces list will indicate if the namespace was successfully validated. DFS namespaces can later be removed by selecting the namespace and clicking the Remove button.
The protocol used by Macintosh clients to connect to each target server can be configured on a per target server basis. When a namespace is first added, Access Connect will attempt to detect, for each target server in the namespace, whether it supports the AFP protocol. If AFP is supported, the target server will be set to AFP by default. If AFP support cannot be confirmed, the target server will be set to OFF. Links to target servers set to OFF will not be visible to Macintosh clients in the DFS volume(s). If you would like Macintosh clients to connect to a target server using SMB, you can select the SMB option for each individual server. If you later install Access Connect on a target server, you can return to the DFS settings tab and select AFP for that server.