[dtriska]

I'm new to AppleScript so I'm looking for some help. Here's the problem:

The school I work for has decided to move to student and teacher accounts on an NT Server because floppies can't hold enough data nowadays. The PCs (Win 98) must log into the NT Server at startup. The user logs in with his/her own user name and password and is given access to a network account where he/she can save files, etc.

On the Mac side (7.1-9.0.4), it's a bit messier. The user must go to the Chooser, select AppleShare, select the server, login and then select the volume where his/her designated space is. I would like to simplify this process by creating a small AppleScript that, when run, would present the user with simply the login screen to the server. The user would then enter his/her user name and password and then select the appropriate volume (if at all possible, I'd like the AppleScript to select the volume for the user as well). This is similar to when you check the "Mount At Startup" box when connecting to a volume but much less annoying.

So, there's my proposal. I'd appreciate any help creating such a script or being pointed to a third party solution that would do the job if anyone knows of one. Thanx.

[tonymac]

Well, the Chooser isn't directly scriptable. There may be an AppleScript addition that can connect to AppleShare volumes. I assume that the NT servers are running Services for Macintosh. You could install DAVE on all of the Macs. DAVE is scriptable, and can be used to automatically mount volumes. It also enables the Macs to use TCP/IP instead of Appletalk, so it's quite a bit faster.

Another option would be to use the multiple users feature of OS 9. The only problem is that if each user needs to log on to several different machines, then you'll have to create the user accounts on each machine. This will create a lot of administrative overhead on your part.

Of course, a similar problem occurs using AppleScript. The way you've described it, the script will be asking for a log in and password and using that information to connect to the correct server volume. In order to map the user name to the server volume, each possible user name will have to be mapped to a corresponding server volume either in the script or in an external text file. Unless of course that the name of the volume is the same as the user name (or involves a text transformation of the username).

This is a very interesting problem, and if I have time later today, I'll look into it and see what I can figure out.

As an aside, I would love to see Apple integrate support for Windows NT domain accounts. It would really help with businesses and universities accepting and supporting Macs on their networks.

[tonymac]

Well, after a brief check for Applescript additions for mounting network volumes, I haven't found anything. If you do use DAVE, then you could write one script that uses a text file to look up the home volume based on the user name. Store the script and text file on an SFM NTFS volume, and set each mac to connect to that volume at startup. Then put an alias to the script in the startup items folder on each Mac. That will solve the administrative issues. Now for the network volumes.....

[Cipher13]

I'm not sure whether this helps, but if you have all the accounts on the one volume, then you can just check the box in the chooser when mounting a volume that says 'mount at startup'.
At startup the log in box would be displayed.
Of course if there are different volumes with say students A-K on one and L-Z on another, then that is a problem...
Try posting this prob in the networking forum, as a general inquiry, not necessarily involving AppleScript.

Cipher13

[Paul Crawford]

Hi all,

Just wanted to add a reminder that -- at least for the Mac OS 8.5.x, 8.6 and 9.x clients -- the "mount volume" command in the built-in 'Standard Additions' scripting addition allows one to script connections to volumes on AFP servers, including Windows NT SFM (AFP) volumes. However, I don't recall that there's much of a graphical interface, unless perhaps you omit the user/password parameters. [Note: For Mac OS 9.x, the AppleScript 1.4.3 update is required to fix a 9.0 bug in connecting to NT servers.]

For older Mac OS/System clients, Leonard Rosenthol's old MountIP scripting addition might work for non-IP connections as well. I also believe that there are some other server-mounting scripting additions available in MacScripter.net's Scripting Additions library; search for the term 'mount' (or 'server').

Regards,

--Paul

[This message has been edited by Paul Crawford (edited 09-13-2000).]

[tonymac]

Thanks, Paul.
FYI Here's the info from the Scripting Addition dictionary:

mount volume: Mount the specified AppleShare volume
mount volume string -- the name or URL path (starting with ‘afp://’) of the volume to mount
on server string -- the server on which the volume resides
[in AppleTalk zone string] -- the AppleTalk zone in which the server resides
[as user name string] -- the user name with which to log in to the server; omit for guest access
[with password string] -- the password for the user name; omit for guest access

If the name of the shared volume is the same as the user name variable (from the login dialog) you could use the command:

mount volume userName on server myserver as user name userName with password userPW

*Note if you don't use variables for userName, myServer and userPW, you have to enclose the names in parentheses.


[This message has been edited by tonymac (edited 09-13-2000).]