AFP and CIFS Share together - most of the time the CIFS share cannot be autodiscovered

[Frosch1482]

Hi to all,

i have a problem on my MAC with OSX 10.9.3 with FreeNas 9.1.2.6

When I start the Finder on my mac, i can see only one share which is the AFP share (that includes only the TM shared dir)
The CIFS share doesn't show at all in Finder. Only when I use the "connect to server" feature, I can connect to the CIFS share.

if I disable the AFP Share, than suddenly the CIFS share is shown. If both share types are enabled, I can see only the AFP share. Strange is as well that both shares are named "Freenas". I have not found any options to change the share names from the gui.

Only a few times (not sure for 100%) I saw both shares together when I started the Finder. the AFP share called freenas and the CIFS share called storage.

BTW on the Windows computer the CIFS share works like a charm :)

Any idea what could cause the AFP and CIFS share not to work together on a OSX?

Thanks guys
Regards from Italy
Frosch1482

 

[cyberjock]

This is a known issue with OSX. Not sure of the exact problem but you basically have to either go all AFP or all CIFS. As a general rule we don't consider this to be a "problem" because you shouldn't be sharing the same files with two different protocols simultaneously and 99% of users prefer to share everything, so using only 1 protocol is all that is needed anyway.

 

[Frosch1482]

Hi,

ok sounds bad. The problem is that I have windows and Mac client computers in my network so that I need CIFS Share. AFP would be pretty good to have time machine backups for the mac computers.

Hope the guys from Cupertino will fix it soon :)

Best Regards,
Frosch1482

 

[raidflex]

You can use both protocols if you create a separate dataset for just time machines backups and only use AFP for that dataset. You just don't want to use two different protocols sharing the same dataset. Personally I have multiple datasets, this way I can only allow certain users access to specific data. I also only use CIFS for compatibility with different OS's. Datasets are a great way to segregate your data for security and easier management.

 

[Frosch1482]

That´s exactly what i have.
I use AFP for TimeMachine
and I want to use CIFS for the rest

The problem is that my MAC shows up only the AFP share and not the CIFS share. All the time I want to connect to the CIFS share I have to manually use the "connect to server" feature from finder.

I really don't like this that much, especially because the WAF is quiet low =)

 

[Whattteva]

Hi,

ok sounds bad. The problem is that I have windows and Mac client computers in my network so that I need CIFS Share. AFP would be pretty good to have time machine backups for the mac computers.

Hope the guys from Cupertino will fix it soon :)

Best Regards,
Frosch1482

I use all flavors of OS's on my network (FreeBSD, Debian Linux, OS X, Windows 7 & 8) and I never really saw the point of configuring anything more than CIFS since it is well-supported on all of the aforementioned OS's. Never really used time machine, but is that supposed to be exclusive to AFP only? Also, isn't AFP supposed to be abandoned by Apple soon? May want to look into that before using it.

 

[berlin]

I can't remember exactly what it was, but I too had problems with how Finder tried to connect to both AFP and CIFS. I think it was how it did mount points for the shares. What I did was create a login script using Automator to mount the shares to different mount points like below, so far it has been fine.

Code:

mount_smbfs //berlin:xxxx@freenas/Media /Users/xxxxx/Media
mount_smbfs //berlin:xxxxx@freenas/Documents /Users/xxxxx/Documents
mount_afp afp://192.168.1.8/MacStuff /Users/xxxxx/TimeMachine

 

[Frosch1482]

This is the solution I use as well... But I really don't like it that much. I would prefer that the CIFS and AFP share are discovered by the Finder...

 

[berlin]

Yeah, if you have a specific reason for connecting with Finder, I think you are screwed. The other thing I don't like about the Finder way is the way it works with multiple users. You end up with different arbitrary mount points for each user depending on who logs in first. So you can't do anything about pointing iTunes and other programs to the same place. Doing the mount points myself made everything consistent and gave me the ability to do Time Machine (AFP) too. Only way I know to do it.

 

[Frosch1482]

Unfortunately you are right. The only way how to use normal shares and TM on a MAC is to mount that stuff (during logon, so you don´t have to do it manually).

What I think causes the finder issue, is that the finder sees both shares AFP and CIFS named as "FreeNas" share.
When I look at my old Qnap, each share type can have its name, example: AFP_QNAP and CIFS_QNAP.

I´m not so an expert that I could change this by my own. But I´m quiet sure that there exists a configuration file somewhere on FreeNas where you can change the share name...

I´m just wondering about one thing: I´m sure that out there are a few guys that are facing the same issue. I cannot imagine that around the world nobody is using AFP for TM and CIFS for all the rest of the shares, especially if there is a mixture of MAC and PC client computers.
On the other hand all bug tickets were closed, saying that the issue is a MAC issue. But I can´t believe in it. Why is it working perfectly to have AFP and CIFS share with other NAS systems?
Probably there are not that much guys using a mac computer and FreeNAS together that is worth the time to investigate on this topic a bit more...

Regards,
Frosch1482