Connect to pangea from Classic Macs

Last revision November 10, 2004

If your Macintosh computer is running a "Classic" version of the MacOS (7, 8, or 9), then you can connect to pangea to access files using the Chooser program in the Apple menu.

After opening the Chooser, click on the AppleShare icon in the upper left to access file servers.

The Chooser allows you to "browse" the network looking for file servers and printers. This uses the AppleTalk protocol developed for Macintosh computers. However, AppleTalk is a local network protocol only. You can only see AppleTalk devices on your local network segment. In Earth Sciences, our local network consists of the Geology Corner, Mitchell Earth Sciences, and Green Earth Sciences buildings. We have defined twelve AppleTalk zones on our network as a way to organize AppleTalk devices. The ES-Ethernet zone is intended only for School or Department wide devices, such as the pangea server, but sometimes you will see random devices in there as it is also the default zone. The other zones are intended to show group devices by geographic location.

In order to browse to pangea via the Chooser, your classic Macintosh computer must be connected to a wired jack in one of the Earth Sciences buildings (wireless is a separate network). In this case, click on the ES-Ethernet zone, where you will find the pangea Aufs server. This is the main server for accessing your files on pangea.

Two other AppleShare servers are run on pangea. The pangea guest server can be used by classes that need to make files available in read-only mode; contact the pangea system manager for access. The Pangea PrinterAuth server is a special server used only to authenticate a Macintosh for printing on the School owned printers.

From any location on the Internet, whether inside or outside the Earth Sciences wired network (although access is not secure from outside), you can also connect directly to the pangea Aufs server with TCP/IP, which is recommended for higher performance. Click on the AppleShare icon in the Chooser, and then click the Server IP Address button. There is no need to select an AppleTalk zone. In the server address box that opens, type pangea.stanford.edu as shown below. This connection method only allows access to the main pangea Aufs server, not to the secondary AppleShare servers listed above.

Whether you connect to the pangea Aufs server via AppleTalk or AppleShare IP, login with your pangea account name and your local pangea password, not your SUNet password.

If your pangea password is longer than eight characters, only type the first eight (maximum allowed for AppleShare). Your SUNet password will not work for this service. Unfortunately, your pangea password is sent across the network in plain text form. It is not encrypted, and thus is vulnerable to being captured by a hacker. Because of this insecurity, connections from outside the Earth Sciences network are not recommended.

After login, the pangea Aufs AppleShare server will offer you a selection of pre-defined volumes for accessing three different types of disk areas.

Earth_Sciences is maintained by the system manager. It contains public domain or site-licensed software that you can download to your Macintosh. Users cannot put anything in this volume. The contents of this volume are mostly obsolete.

Pangea-USERNAME-Mac-files is a volume to store your Macintosh files and applications just as if they were on local disk. The aufs Mac-files volumes are separate from your pangea home directory. You can directly run applications stored here or work directly on files stored here with Macintosh applications.

Pangea-USERNAME-Unix-files contains all the files in your Unix home directory, which can be accessed as text-only data files from the Macintosh. Regular Macintosh files and applications cannot be stored here (they will be corrupted if you try). This is a useful way to access the html text files in your /WWW subdirectory of your pangea home directory. Please note that there seems to be a bug in the CAP software that can sometimes interfere with making changes to these text files from a Macintosh. It is not safe to upload or download "binary" files such as jpeg or gif graphics to your pangea home directory or its subdirectories using the Aufs system. Use an ftp program (such as fetch) to copy binary files between your pangea home directory and a classic Macintosh.

It is also possible to define a "personal" network volume for any directory on pangea's disks to which you have at least read permission. This must be done by modifying a file in your pangea home directory before connecting to the pangea Aufs server. To find out how to do this, please read the on-line manual entry for Aufs on pangea (use the command man Aufs).

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