Temporary connection method to sesfs.stanford.edu from MacOS X 10.6
Last revision January 14, 2010
Apple changed the connection protocol for CIFS servers in the "Snow Leopard" version (10.6) of Mac OS X. This change broke the recommended kerberos authentication method for connecting to such servers.
Hopefully Apple will fix this problem in a future 10.6 update. Meanwhile, you can use the workaround described on this page for 10.6 only. This workaround uses the less convenient and less secure Windows NTLM v2 login method.
System requirements
To connect with the method described on this page, your Mac must be running Mac OS X version 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"). See the normal instructions for earlier versions of Mac OS X.
If you need help making the connection to sesfs.stanford.edu, put in a request on the HelpSU web site.
Due to a security restriction in the campus network firewalls, you can only connect to file shares on sesfs.stanford.edu if your computer is connected to the Stanford campus network. If you are off-campus, you can install and use the Stanford VPN client on your computer. That client authenticates you (using your SUNet ID) so your off-campus network connection will be treated by the firewall as if you were on campus.
Connect to shares on sesfs.stanford.edu
You need to know the name of the share you want to use. You can repeat this procedure to connect to multiple shares at once.
Connections are done from the Finder. Make sure the Finder is active (click on a Finder window, or its icon in the Dock, or an empty area of the desktop). From the Go menu, select the Connect to Server... item, as shown in this screenshot:
This will open the Connect to Server window. You type the information needed to connect to the file server in the Server Address: field. The syntax is:
cifs://WIN;sunetid@sesfs.stanford.edu/sharename
where you substitute your SUNet ID name for sunetid and the name of the file share you desire for sharename. Everything else is typed exactly as shown in the syntax, including the various punctuation marks.
For example, in the screenshot below, the user with SUNet ID name "ktai" wants to connect to the common share named scr1:
After typing the share address, click on the Connect button. You will see the Connecting To Server window, as shown in this screenshot:
This should be followed immediately by a window that prompts for your username and password, as shown in this screenshot:
The Registered User button should be checked and is required; no guest logins are allowed to sesfs.stanford.edu. The Name: field will be pre-filled with the domain identifier WIN\ followed by your account name from the Mac. Change the account name if necessary to be your SUNet ID name. You must leave the WIN\ prefix at the beginning of the name field, with no space after it before your SUNet ID name. Then type your SUNet ID password in the Password: field. Click on the OK button to submit your login and finish connecting.
When the connection is finished, a Finder window opens to show the contents of the share. For example, a connection to the scr1 share will show like this:
Unlike Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.3, you will not see a network disk icon for this share on your desktop. The only access is through the Finder window that opens. You can work with the files as if they were on a local disk.
When you are done working with the share, logging out or shutting down will disconnect you. If you want to disconnect without a logout, the best way is to right-click on the disk icon in the hierarchical Finder view to bring up a contextual menu and select the Eject item, as shown in this screenshot:
With a single button mouse, hold the Control key while clicking on the disk icon to bring up the contextual menu.