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Scenario 2: Sharing file in a mixed Macintosh / Unix environment |
A typical example when Fork Server Helper can be useful in a network environment consisting of Macintosh and Unix computers is shown in the following picture:
Here, a Mac OS X network client is writing files to a Mac OS X server using the AFP protocol. We assume the workflow in this network demands that some other users process those files on a Unix system before the data is sent back to the Mac OS X machine: The Unix system reads the files from Mac OS X Server using NFS, and shares the files via NFS back to the Mac OS X client.
In this scenario, the Unix computer is not able to see the resource forks on Mac OS X Server. NFS does not transport resource forks by default and the Unix system doesn't know anything about Mac OS X's capabilities to emulate forks over NFS. For this reason, the resource forks are lost when the Mac OS X client reads the files back from the Unix computer. Note that this problem would not occur if NFS were used for all three file transfers.
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 Mac OS X client and exporting them to Unix. Then run Fork Serv er Helper to monitor this folder with the option Generate additional AppleDouble representations from resource forks. The native resource forks will now additionally be presented in a form that can be transported via NFS and is correctly understood by Mac OS X clients.