Using Mac OS X 10.4 with the EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD

Background

The Mac OS X 10.4 operating system uses the same technology as the EVA8000 called Samba to share its folders.  The Mac OS calls this "Windows Sharing."  For Windows Sharing to work and share folders with other machines on the network, you must first designate or create a user and password that will be assigned to authenticate users when they use the shared folder.  Another important part of sharing folders on a network is the "Computer Name."  For the Windows Sharing to work properly with the EVA8000, you must use a Computer Name that is less than 14 characters and does not have spaces or special characters.  By default the Windows Sharing service is not enabled.

Although Windows Sharing provides a way to share folders with the EVA8000, it is configured in such a way that makes it impossible for the EVA8000 to enumerate these shared folders automatically.  Mac OS X shared folders must be added into the EVA8000's shared folder list manually.  Another limitation is that the shared folders are not configurable.  For those who are familiar the Windows operating system, you can simply right click on a folder and configure it for sharing.  It is not the same with Mac Shared Folders.  Shared folders in the Mac are really just the content of the user folders.  Let's take for example a Mac OSX with a Computer Name of "Snoopy" that is configured with 3 users, Joe, Mary and Alice. When Windows Sharing is enabled, the three shares in this mac would be the following:

\\Snoopy\Joe
\\Snoopy\Mary
\\Snoopy\Alice

Depending on which account is used to access these shares, you will only have full access to that account's share by default.  For example, if I enabled the account Joe to for Windows Sharing, I will only have full access to \\Snoppy\Joe.  To allow a more secure way of sharing your media, these steps will walk you in creating an account specifically to access your media from the EVA8000.

Create a User Account

You must have administrative rights to perform these steps.

1. From the MAC menu, select System Preferences > Accounts
2. Click the "lock" to make changes and enter your administrator password.
3. Click on the "+" symbol to add a new user.
4. Enter a username.  Create a username, something like "EVA8000 User."  Use "eva8000" for the Short Name and Password entries.  Also make sure to check the "Allow user to administer this computer" option.  Click on "Create Account" when done.
5. Click the "lock" to prevent other changes.

Verify that the Window Sharing screen is showing that "EVA8000 User" is an enabled account.  Also, notice the sentence that states "Windows users can access your computer at ...  Where the ... represents the network path to use in order to access the share (e.g. \\192.168.0.250\Joe).  Make a note of this path.  You will need this later to configure the EVA8000.

Note 1:  It is not necessary to create a new user account to Windows Sharing.  As long as the existing account uses a short name of less than 14 characters and not use special characters, you should be able to configure it with the EVA8000.

Note 2:  Usernames and Passwords are case sensitive.  For example, "Joe" is not the same as "JOE."

Configure File Permissions

1. Open your user folder.
2. Highlight the folder you want the EVA8000 access to (e.g. Movies, Music, Pictures).
3. Select "File" > "Get Info"
4. From the "Info" window, select to open the "Ownership & Permissions:" setting.  Select "Details" to open.  Where it says "Others:" select "Read only."
5. Repeat the same procedure with the other folders you want the EVA8000 access to.

Note that whenever you add files subfolders within these folders, you must repeat this procedure.

Enable Windows Sharing

1. From the MAC menu, select System Preferences > Sharing
2. From the Sharing control panel, select "Windows Sharing" and click the "Start" button to enable Windows Sharing.
3. Select the "Enable Accounts..." button and select on the "EVA8000 User" account.  Enter "eva8000" when prompted and click on the "OK" button.
4. Click on "Done"
5. While you are here, check that the "Computer Name" setting is set to less than 14 characters and has no spaces or special characters.  Modify it to conform to this requirement.

Configure the EVA8000 Shares

1. From the main menu, select "More" > "Supervisor functions" > "Advanced setup" > "Setup network shares" > "Add network share"
2. Enter the IP address (noted in Create a User Account section) or the Computer Name, "Snoopy" in the "Host" field.
3. Enter short username "eva8000" that was created in the Create a User Account section.
4. Enter the password "eva8000" that was  used in the Create a User Account section.
5. Select "OK" to accept the settings.
6. Repeat the same process but this time use the following values:
   Share: eva8000
   Username: eva8000
   Password: eva8000

Note: Remember that username and passwords are case sensitive.

Configure the EVA8000 Data Save Location

1. From the main menu, select "More" > "Supervisor functions" > "Advanced setup" > "Data save location"
2. Select "Snoopy/eva8000"
3. Select "OK" to accept.

Note that we are using the eva8000 share for the data save location.  Remember, that the designated share account has full access to their own share.  We would not have been able to use "Snoopy/Joe" for this since we have not configured Snoopy to have full access to Joe's user folder.

Perform Full Media Scan

At this point you can perform a full scan of your media.  From the main menu, select "More..." > "Supervisor functions" > "Full scan for media files"

N101683.asp Jun 20, 2007