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Scenario 1: Sharing files in a mixed Macintosh / Windows environment |
A typical example when Fork Server Helper can be useful in a network environment consisting of Macintosh and Windows computers is shown in the following picture:
Here, a Mac OS X network client is writing files to a Windows file server using the AFP protocol, and it is reading files from a Mac OS X Server. We assume the workflow in this network demands that some other users additionally are transferring the Macintosh files lying on the Windows server to the Mac OS X Server. They are using the CIFS/SMB protocol when doing so, either logging into the Windows server itself or using a Windows client to transfer the files over the network.
In this scenario, the mix of network protocols causes the resource forks not to be reconverted from their Windows SFM representation to native resource forks when Macintosh files are transported from Windows to Mac OS X server. The Macintosh computers cannot understand this "foreign" representation of resource forks. The forks become visible as additional AFP_afpInfo:$DATA, AFP_Resource$DATA and Comments$DATA files which may create problems for all three machines. Note that those problems do not occur when you don't mix the protocols, e.g. using AFP for all three file transfers. But this is not an option if Windows clients should transfer Macintosh data between the two servers.
Fork Server Helper assists you in solving the problem: Create a special shared folder on the Mac OS X file server that is used for receiving Macintosh files coming from the Windows server. Then run Fork Server Helper to monitor this folder with the option Create resource forks from AppleDouble and Services for Macintosh representation. The additional $DATA files will be removed and converted to native resource forks.