Automount hidden group folder

[jbnlsd]

Good morning…

I’ve had this problem since last year but I was hoping upgrading the servers to Leopard would help, but it didn’t. We only have a few MacBooks with Leopard on them so it hasn’t been widespread, but with more and more Leopard computers being purchased, I have to figure this out soon.

We basically have two groups in Workgroup Manager – Teachers & Students. We set them to have same Group Folder in Workgroup Manager (afp://serverip/Data). In this folder is all the data for apps that store their data on the server which is the database for the library, typing programs, etc.

For these groups, we check: Preferences/Login Items/Items/Add Group Share Point. This adds Data to the list of items to launch on login. The option is checked to “Mount share point with user’s name and password”.

The checkbox is also selected to hide this share point… Which is where the problem comes in Leopard. This works fine with a Tiger client with both Tiger and Leopard servers. The share point only shows up as /Network/Data and /Volumes/Data and doesn’t show up in the finder or on the desktop. The apps are preset to know where the data is and for the most part, the users never know they’re connected to this share.

However, when logging in on a Leopard client, it pops up with an authentication window asking for your username/password for the server. If you cancel the authentication, the Data folder still shows up as /Network/Data and /Volumes/Data as it should and nothing shows on the desktop or finder. However, if you put in a username/password, then it mounts the data drive a second time as /Volumes/Data-1 which does show up in the finder and on the desktop. It also registers as two separate AFP connections in Server Admin.

We need to have the share hidden so a student doesn’t wander into the folder and wipe out the school’s shared data. Some of it is secured with ACLs, but a lot of it must be set to read/write for the students and this method has been working well with our 1st-6th grades who aren’t particularity malicious.

If I uncheck the Hide option in Workgroup Manager, then it doesn’t ask for authentication and just mounts on the Desktop.

Basically, the Leopard clients are doing the same thing they did under Tiger, but there’s a second connection being called for the data folder when it’s set to be hidden.

Anybody have any suggestions on what might be able to cure this?

Thanks,
JB

[tlarkin]

you can mount the volume and then use a simple script using the [color=Blue]chflags[/color] command with the -hidden switch to hide it completely from the GUI. You may be able to set something in the image using /etc/fstab for mounting the volume and then using chflags to hide it.

See the chflags man page.

[jbnlsd]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: tlarkin[/u][p]you can mount the volume and then use a simple script using the [color=Blue]chflags[/color] command with the -hidden switch to hide it completely from the GUI. You may be able to set something in the image using /etc/fstab for mounting the volume and then using chflags to hide it.

See the chflags man page.[/p][/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply.

This would work, but the hidden option isn’t there in Tiger. So if I mount it without the Hide button checked in Workgroup Manager, then I can only use chflags to hide it from Leopard computers.

I did notice something fun today though. on a Leopard server, if I leave the Hide box uncheck, then now my Leopard clients are logging in with the folder mounted and hidden like the tiger ones do if the hide box is checked. Weird. Maybe this was introduced in 10.5.6.

[tlarkin]

Well….

Umm I think, and this is me thinking so not 100% sure on this, you can use the setfile command in Tiger to hide a volume. You can also script with the mv command to rename it with a dot in front of the name which also hides it from the finder.

Good luck, let me know how it works for you.

[Mr_Dennis]

I too am experiencing this issue. I did notice one unusual thing. If the share point has a space in the name e.g. “File Server” as long as you remove the “%20” from the login item URL, the share point will mount as a hidden volume. Well that’s what I’m experiencing and have been able to replicate. I’d be curious if you experience the same result.

Dennis

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