Using the My Network Application
The My Network application is installed by default into your applications
folder. It is used to view the computers on your network that are
sharing their files using BeServed.
To access the files on a remote computer, launch the My Network
application by double-clicking the icon in the applications folder.
When the program appears, you should see a list of the other computers
on your network running the BeServed server. If you do not see the
computer(s) you expect, make sure it is running the server application
described in Sharing Your Files with
Others.
Once you find the computer you're looking for, double-click its
entry in the list to display the list of shared folders that computer
is making available. If you do not see the shared folder you are
looking for, check the settings on the remote computer to ensure
it is properly configured to share its files.
<screenshot>
The My Network application is shown above. Several remote computers
are displayed. One computer is displayed with a fully qualified
domain name, others have simple host names, and one computer is
shown with an IP address only. The address is shown when a host
name cannot be determined by consulting a DNS server or the local
/etc/hosts file.
<screenshot>
Double-clicking on a specific computer opens another window displaying
the folders that are shared on that computer. The window above shows
a single shared folder called Linux Home Folders.
Once you have the shared folder you're looking for, double-click
on it. That folder will open in a Tracker window just as though
the files were local to your machine. At this point, you can browse
through the remote file share using Tracker or the command terminal.
Aside from performance, it should be transparent that you are accessing
files on another computer.
If the remote computer has been configured to authenticate users
against the BeSure authentication server, you will be prompted for
a user name and password before being allowed to work with any of
the files, and consequently, before the Tracker window appears.
<screenshot>
You can obtain information on any of the computers listed in the
MyNetwork window, including other names (aliases) that
computer can be referenced by, the IP address(es) of the computer,
the type of hardware platform, the operating system, and number
of active connections. To view this information on a computer in
the list, simply highlight the desired computer, then click the
About this Computer button.
<screenshot>
Using Terminal
You can also find computers and mount remote shared folders from
the command line. Two programs, lshosts and mounthost are provided
for that purpose. Both are installed in the BeOS shared bin folder
(typically /boot/home/config/bin), and should consequently be in
your path.
To obtain a list of computers on your network running the BeServed
server application, type
lshosts
on the command line and press Enter. A list of computers will
be displayed by their network host name. The computers are listed
in the order they respond to your query. To view the shared folders
exported on any host, simply append the host name to the lshost
command. For example, to view the shared folders on a remote computer
named "beos" you would type
lshosts beos
To mount a shared folder to a folder on your local computer, you
use the mounthost command. The syntax of this command is:
mounthost [-t] host:shared_folder [on] path
Example:
mounthost beos:BootDir /boot/home/bootdir
The -t option is used only when the server you access
requires authentication. Normally, you will receive a simple prompt
at the terminal window asking for your user name, then your password.
However, if you are using the mounthost command from within a shell
script, you may not have a terminal window in which to type. In
this case, using the -t option displays the Tracker login
panel displayed above.
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