Automounting hidden shares via WG Manager w/ 10.5 clients acting weird

[jbnlsd]

Here’s my environment:
Xserve that has user home folders and runs an OD. Authentication is done via AD.

In Workgroup Manager, the user groups have a “group share point” named Data which is set in the Login Prefs to automount and the “Hide” box is checked. This folder holds data for network apps for our schools (typing programs, accelerated reader, etc). In 10.4, this shows up as /Network/Data for the clients and unless someone is really searching, they’d never know this folder existed… It’s just magic! The box to mount with the user’s name/password is also checked. We don’t want people to actually know this is happening so we don’t want it on the desktop.

This all works fine in 10.4. When a 10.5 client signs on, they get a box that pops up and asks for their password a second time. The Data share still mounts in /Network… Even before I do anything with the password box that comes up. If I enter the password, then Data mounts on the desktop as well as in /Network. If I hit cancel then it’s just in /Network.

If I uncheck the “Hide” box for the Data volume in WG Manager, then it does not ask for the password and mounts the volume on the desktop and in /Network.

So I don’t really know what’s making it want to mount on the desktop. It seems to work the same way it did with 10.4 only now it asks for the password a second time to put the share on the desktop which I don’t want in the first place.

…

I also have one school where they have another three shares mount for the teachers that are supposed to be visible on the desktop. This works fine in 10.4. With 10.5, It still works, but I get four “Connection Failed” errors (instead of the password box) when a user logs in. However, the three shares show up on the desktop and the Data folder is in /Network. Also, users get the Connection Failed error if they go to go->connect to server.

If I uncheck “Hide” from that Data folder again then it gives no errors, but the Data folder shows up on the desktop.

…

So basically something in 10.5 is making it ask for a password again or throw up an error after it has already mounted the share it’s set to mount. Things still work both ways, just with the data folder hidden you get an error or the password box and with the data folder not hidden, then kids can potentially wander in to the folder and cause problems.

I hope that makes some sense. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m pretty much at a dead end.

Thanks for reading.
– JB

[Mr_Dennis]

I’ve posted this reply on another post but I think they are related….

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.

It appears the NetAuthAgent is responsible for AFP & SMB requests, and as a result it is prompting the user to login again. If you issue a ‘killall NetAuthAgent’ from the terminal, it will kill this process along with the login dialog box. Not really a solution but hopefully this information will help in diagnosing this issue.

Dennis

[jbnlsd]

Thanks for the reply… I still haven’t gotten anywhere with this. 🙁

My sharepoint doesn’t have a space in it… it’s just “afp://ipaddress/Data”

Are you saying that if you have a sharepoint w/out a space or if you just take the %20 out of the address in workgroup manager, it will mount as hidden without any issue?

Are you setting it as the group share point or just putting it in workgroup manager as a login item?

[Mr_Dennis]

Basically I don’t have a solution for how to mount a share point without a space in the name. However if you add a space to the share point’s name, you should be able to have it mount as a hidden volume. So in your instance, if you rename your “Data” share point to “Date 1” it should work.

In my case, I’m putting the share point in as a login item and when the share point has a space in it, Workgroup Manager will automatically put a %20 to substitute the space character. I then need to remove the %20 and replace it with a space. This is only required if it’s a login item. So if I was to add your renamed share point as a login item, it would appear in Workgroup Manager as “afp://ipaddress/Data%201” and I’ll then need to remove the %20 so it’ll look like “afp://ipaddress/Data 1”.

Even though I’m adding my share point as a login item, I still get the same results as a group share point i.e. if the share point has a space in the name it will mount as a hidden volume. The only difference is you do not need to remove the %20 from the URL when it’s a group share point.

Dennis

[Mr_Dennis]

I think I’ve found a suitable workaround solution!!! 😀

However, this only appears to work with login items, not group share points. You’ll need to modify the URL so it reads “afp://ipaddress/Data/ .” You basically need to put a slash after the share point name, then a space character followed by a full stop (period).

This worked for me. Let me know how you got on…

Dennis

[jbnlsd]

😯
Wow!

That worked. And it doesn’t change anything for Tiger clients (at least Intel, I’m going to assume PPC for now). Where did you get the idea to add the “/ .” to the path?

Thank you so much for figuring that out. I knew I’d have to figure this out pretty soon now that we’re getting more Leopard computers in the district, it’s such a relief to get somewhere…

– Jason

[Mr_Dennis]

Believe it or not, it was a matter of trial and error. I’m happy I could help you out.

One last final thing. If you wanted to hide a SMB share point you’ll need a different URL E.g. “smb://ipaddress/Data/; ;”. i.e. a slash followed by a semicolon, a space and then another semicolon.

Dennis

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