I have been doing some research recently in an attempt to improve the experience of Mac OS X users who also use the College VPN service to access resources on the College network.
Whilst access to such resources has been available since the introduction of the College's VPN service, the procedure involved is cumbersome.
As Mac OS X has continued to evolve, the capabilities of the built-in VPN client have steadily improved. With the release of OS X 10.4 (Tiger) the built-in VPN client can connect to multiple network shares without the need to re-enter user details for each resource and it can be configured to use "Split Tunnelling" so you can connect to the College network and still have access to the Internet, unlike in previous versions of OS X.
I have written a simple Apple Script to map network drives that can be downloaded from the College web site and customised to suit your needs. The file to be downloaded is in Stuffit format which should be recognised by most modern Macs.
An alternative, and more powerful method than Apple Script, is to use the freeware program SMB Manager or its free successor Supinfo Share Manager (although I had problem making this work). The initial configuration of these programs will take several minutes and requires the user to enter their username and password in a number of different locations. However, once this procedure has been done, connection to network shares can be almost entirely automated.
To configure SMB Manager you will need the relevant IP addresses and share names for the resources you wish to access. The latest version of this information can be downloaded in Microsoft Word format from here.
I would appreciate feedback from any Mac OS X users as they explore the potential of these two new methods of accessing network resources.
This announcement can also be accessed via the College web site on the following address www.farnboroughsfc.ac.uk/vpn/osx.
Dr Mike Docker
Director of ICLT