Fork Server Helper
The fork problem when mixing file access protocols
Mac OS X is almost unique in its tight integration of different industry standards for file sharing. The operating system supports the following file sharing technologies:
- AFP (Apple Filing Protocol), the standard for file sharing used with classic Macintosh systems
- NFS (Network File System), the standard for file sharing used with Unix systems
- CIFS/SMB (Common Internet File System / Server Message Block), the standard for file sharing used with Microsoft-Windows and IBM OS/2 operating systems
Mac OS X is capable of supporting all three file sharing standards both as a server and a client. However, if both of the following two conditions are met, subtle problems with file sharing can arise:
- You want to share files that make use of the Macintosh's file fork feature or extended Finder attributes (e.g. Type/Creator codes).
- You are using two different file sharing protocols when handling those files. For example, one user creates a file using AFP, and another user should read the same file using NFS.
Fork Server Helper can help you to solve the problems arising when converting different fork and attribute representations into each other.
Features
- Convert emulated forks of a Mac OS X Server working with NFS or CIFS/SMB into native forks which can be used locally or via AFP.
- Convert emulated forks which have been created by Microsoft Services for Macintosh on a Windows server and have been copied to Mac OS X into native forks which can be used locally or via AFP.
- Create emulated forks (AppleDouble representations) in addition to native forks: After that, files which have been transferred natively or via AFP onto a file server can additionally be shared via NFS or CIFS/SMB without losing forks or Finder attributes.
- Change POSIX permissions as well as owner and group owner settings of shared files to a predefined setting you can customize freely.
- Perform all mentioned fork and permission operations on a stored list of shared folders.
- Let the operations run automatically in the background and let the system repeat them in periodic time intervals (e.g. every 5 minutes). This feature is only supported in Panther and Tiger.