[Zarafa]

Please point me elsewhere if this question has been answered, but I haven't been able to find the solution yet.

I'm trying to get OS X 10.3.8 to connect to a couple of SMB/CIFS resources. One is a share on WinXPSP2, the other is Samba 3 running on FreeBSD. For various reasons I'd like to do this over port 445/tcp only (CIFS).

1) Connecting to the Windows share only works if I enable all the Windows filesharing ports in the Windows firewall -- 137, 138, 139, and 445. If I have just 445 enabled, no luck.

2) Connecting to the FreeBSD box fails for much the same reason -- not only do I have a local firewall [pf] on that box blocking the NetBIOS ports (137, 138, 139), but I have Samba listening exclusively on 445. I can watch the connection attempts come in on the NetBIOS ports but never see any 445 traffic (I haven't tried allowing Samba to listen on 137/138/139 as well, but have no reason to believe it wouldn't work, assuming I allowed those through the firewall).

Note that other Windows machines can connect to both resources without a problem, using 445 only.

I've tried connecting using the syntax "cifs://servername/share" as well as "cifs://servername:445/share"; the first had identical results to "smb://" syntax, and the second was apparently an invalid way of specifying the connection.

How can I make my Mac connect using the standard 445/tcp, and not have to introduce the NetBIOS ports into my networks?

Thanks in advance.

[Zarafa]

On a related note, can anyone tell me if OS X Server provides SMB/CIFS file sharing services on the NetBIOS ports, or if it can vend those services on tcp/445 only?

(I'm asking that mostly out of curiosity, since I don't have OS X Server anywhere.)

As a follow-up to my original post, all research so far leads me to believe that OS X isn't capable of being a client to CIFS resources on tcp/445. That's troubling -- at both home and work I've gone to a lot of trouble to eliminate NetBIOS traffic everywhere, and neither Windows nor Unix clients or servers have had any difficulty with that. OS X seems to be the exception. At work at least, I'll never be able to access Windows/Samaba file shares, which have all moved to 445 exclusively. At home I have the option of changing my various settings, but would prefer not to have to.

Any information to the contrary will be appreciated!

[Tsilou B.]

Have you tried DAVE from Thursby software? It's not free, but it would at least be interesting to know if it has the same problems as Apple's solution or works instantly. You can download a free trial from

http://www.thursby.com/products/dave.html

[Tsilou B.]

Originally posted by Zarafa:
On a related note, can anyone tell me if OS X Server provides SMB/CIFS file sharing services on the NetBIOS ports, or if it can vend those services on tcp/445 only?

I'm sure that it can vend them on port 445 if you configure it accordingly - Mac OS X Server uses Samba 3.0 for Windows file sharing and it would certainly be known if Samba would lack features that important.

[Zarafa]

Originally posted by Tsilou B.:
Have you tried DAVE from Thursby software? It's not free, but it would at least be interesting to know if it has the same problems as Apple's solution or works instantly. You can download a free trial from

http://www.thursby.com/products/dave.html

I implemented DAVE back in the OS 8/9 days in the company I worked for at the time. It was OK -- not particularly stable or fast, but not bad. I've been reluctant to try the OS X version. I might email Thursby and see what they say before I try it again.

Thanks for the pointer though.

[edit: typo fix]