Note to Self: Missing "Shared" in Leopard Sidebar
Posted by in Tech at 3:09 p.m. on Nov. 11th, 200717 Comments 0 Pings
Just so I won’t forget it next time:
Took me some tcpdumping to figure this one out, but here’s the deal: If you’re missing the “Shared” sidebar in Leopard, it’s probably due to some sort of fancy-pants DNS cleverness from your provider or someone else, like OpenDNS. Fix it by doing this from the terminal:
$ sudo pico /etc/smb.conf
and add the following line to the [global] section:
name resolve order = lmhosts bcast wins
Save it, then disable and reenable file-sharing from the Network panel, checking “Advanced...” to make sure that SMB is enabled. After a minute or two, your Shared should be back in the sidebar.
Why does this happen? A local name is searched for via DNS first, and instead of returning a “host not found” and thus triggering the next stage of name resolution (lmhosts or bcast), the name is resolved into the address of the provider’s search machine, supposedly to make your life easier. But it doesn’t make your life easier, it breaks stuff like Samba. A name shouldn’t resolve if it doesn’t exist. There are methods for handling things like this, like the built-in “Host not found” pages of many web browsers.
Comments
Anon
December 25, 2007 at 7:27 a.m.:this worked perfectly, though I did a killall Finder instead of waiting the two minutes-- shares popped up right away. Thanks!
brian
December 31, 2007 at 5:34 a.m.:i cant edit the smb.conf says permissionfailed... i am an admin on this box
chrisfromhelsinki
January 3, 2008 at 11:54 a.m.:Worked for me! Thanks!
Also did "killall Finder". To accelerated the whole :)
Rube
January 8, 2008 at 5:37 p.m.:brian,
if you're trying to edit a file with "sudo pico ..." and it says permission denied, you're either not an admin, the file is protected at the UNIX level, or at the filesystem level with something like extended attributes. Try
$ sudo -s
# chmod u+w /etc/smb.conf
# pico /etc/smb.conf
and see where that gets you.
Zach
January 16, 2008 at 4:50 a.m.:Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. I had seen my Windows pc earlier right after I changed my WINS workgroup. However, I ejected that share from the sidebar and now it won't reappear. I tried updating smb.conf as suggested above (restarted file sharing, finder, even my computer) to no avail. Any more ideas? Thanks!
Titus
January 16, 2008 at 8:35 a.m.:I think it's working for me. The only problem i'm facing now is the missing Tigers from my Leopard sidebar. I wonder why and how to fix it. Hmm...
Aaron
January 18, 2008 at 6:44 a.m.:I am "newish" to the Mac scene and I am also trying to fix this problem. Could someone please explain what this means? And how do I do it?
"and add the following line to the [global] section:
name resolve order = lmhosts bcast wins "
Thanks in advance.
Rube
January 18, 2008 at 2:08 p.m.:Aaron,
just edit the [global] section of the file /etc/smb.conf until it looks like this:
[global]
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
debug pid = yes
log level = 1
server string = Mac OS X
<b>
name resolve order = lmhosts bcast wins
</b>
printcap name = cups
printing = cups
...
then, save it.
Aaron
January 19, 2008 at 12:26 a.m.:Thanks for the reply.
Still confused. After doing this first step "sudo pico /etc/smb.conf ", it asks for a password and I enter it. Nothing happens from there. The is no [global] file or anything to edit.
Rube
January 19, 2008 at 4:54 p.m.:Hi, Aaron
you need to be an Admin for the computer. If you look in System Preferences - Accounts , it should say "Admin" under your account, and not "Standard". If it says Admin and you still can't edit the file, you may have other problems.
Rube
January 28, 2008 at 11:19 p.m.:Andrew,
you hit Ctrl-X , then answer Y to the question, then Enter to confirm the filename.
Straff
February 27, 2008 at 5:02 p.m.:Just a quick note to say thanks this is near the top of google, and worked straight off!!
Ben
March 17, 2008 at 4:58 a.m.:For those struggling with pico.
You can edit the file with TextMate from http://www.macromates.com You will need to use the Open Menu and make sure invisible files is turned on in the Open Dialog window.
navigate to /etc and look for the smb.conf file
It will ask for your password when you save the file.
HTH
Tinsun
March 25, 2008 at 9:40 a.m.:Hi! I found this when searching for a solution on how to HIDE machines with ARD turned on. It's extremely irritating, since I administer some 100 machines over a couple subnets via ARD and do NOT want all of them to show up in the clients' finder windows. Neither do I want those with portables to show up when they're somewhere else. I know it's not the same thing, but I thought I'd give it a shot & ask here. Cheers!
joshyv
March 31, 2008 at 4:35 p.m.:weirdly, this doesn't work for me, even after a reboot, and file sharing turned off completely (or trying with it back on). any other ideas?
Chantal
December 22, 2007 at 12:07 a.m.:Thanks for the info! I couldn't find a way to get my shared computers in the sidebar after upgrading to Leopard...
greetings for rainy Spain...