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The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department mains a small number of file servers for administrative computing support. These servers provide shared folders to PC and Mac users among the faculty and staff in the department. The following is information on how to get a shared folder mounted on the desktop of your Mac or PC and other related tasks.
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At the present time there are two file servers being used for sharing administrative files in the department: ee.usc.edu and ee-fs.usc.edu. Both systems can share folders with both PC (Windows) and Mac systems. The instructions below for connecting to a file server apply to all the server systems. However users will still need to know which file server to connect to in order to access the files they need.
If the shared folder has been made availble for mounting using Apple's "AFP" file sharing protocol, then a Mac may (see below) be able to mount it from anywhere on the Internet. If the folder is being shared with Windows "SMB" protocol then it will only be accessible to systems with an IP address in the "usc.edu" domain. Due to security concerns, USC's routers block the passage of the SMB packets from outside the usc.edu domain to hosts inside the USC domain. This means the system must be attached to the campus network, or the remote system is connected to the campus network using a VPN connection.
Most shared folders are shared using both protocols. Windows users will have to use the SMB protocol since it is usually the only one availble. Mac users should use the AFP protocol whenever possible.
Wireless systems that connect using the "USC Secure Wireless" network should be able to access shared folders as described below. PCs that are using the "USC Guest Wireless" network that does not require authentication probably will not be able to connect to shared folders for the same reasons as decribed above for accessing folders from off-campus. Systems on "USC Guest Wireless" are treated the same as off-campus systems by the USC routers that implement security firewalls.
To access a shared folder you will need to have an account on the server system and know your username and password. Accounts are set up by the department IT staff who will notify you by email or in person of your username and password. Usernames are normally the same as your username on other USC system and for your "@usc.edu" email address. The department servers DO NOT use the same passwords as the USC central servers like email.usc.edu. Unless you have changed the password to something else, you will have to use the password given to you by the IT staff to connect to the shared folder.
Open up a File Explorer by holding down the Windows key and typing 'E'. This will bring up a window showing your recently used folders and files. Along the left side click on "This PC". The ribbon menu at the top will change and you can then click on "Computer" in the menu. This will cause another menu to appear below that has a "Map network drive" entry (circled in red below).
Click on "Map network drive" and this should put up a window similar to the one below
In the "Drive:" field, the system may have already filled in an available one-letter drive indentifier ("Z" in the example shown). The drive name can be whatever letter you want to use as long as it's not already in use. It doesn't have to be "Z" like in this example.
In the "Folder:" field enter the name of the shared folder in the form
\\server.usc.edu\share-name
For example, if the shared folder is "Department-Stuff" and the server is
"ee-fs.usc.edu", then enter the name
\\ee-fs.usc.edu\Department-Stuff
In most cases you should uncheck the "Reconnect at sign-in" box. If this box is checked the shared folder will remount every time the PC is rebooted.
Next, check the box that says "Connect using different credentials" and then click on "Finish". This will bring up a "Windows Security" box like the one below.
Depending on whether or not your system is set up to use Windows Domains, the next
step may require some trial and error.
Windows may have already put in a what it thinks is the proper username for you to
connect to the file server, but it is almost always wrong for connecting to the
department's servers. In this box you can enter the correct username and
password for the server you are connecting to.
The username that goes in the box should be just the username, like
"weber", "gloria", "boston", not your
email address or some combination of the system name and usename like
"myPC\weber".
Warning: There have been reports that doing a copy and paste operation
to insert the password, rather than typing the letters in by hand, sometimes
doesn't result in the correct password being entered.
Once the username and password has been inserted in their fields, click on the
"OK" button to attempt connecting to the server.
If instead of seeing the shared folder the system now puts up another box
for entering a username and password this is due to an issue with Windows
domains. Click on the Cancel buttons until you are back to the the "Map
Network Drive" screen. Do the same things here as you did before to bring up
the first "Windows Security" box. Enter your username and password as before
but this time put a backslash in front of the username. So if your
username is "eeprof", enter "\eeprof" in the username
box. Click on the "OK" button and see if it will now connect to the
server.
With any luck a window for the shared folder will soon appear.
When you are done using the shared folder, open up the "This PC" window again and look for the shared folders to be listed under the "Network locations" heading in the main part of the window. Do a right click on the one you are done with and a pop-up menu should appear. Select "Disconnect" and the shared folder should disappear from the window.
To access a shared folder you will need to have an account on the server system and know your username and password. Accounts are set up by the department IT staff who will notify you by email or in person of your username and password. Usernames are normally the same as your username on other USC system and for your "@usc.edu" email address. The department servers DO NOT use the same passwords as the USC central servers like email.usc.edu. Unless you have changed the password to something else, you will have to use the password given to you by the IT staff to connect to the shared folder.
From the Start menu click on the "Computer" item in the list along the right side to bring up a window showing the disk drives and other stuff. In the window's menu bar, click on "Map Network Drive". This should put up a window similar to the one below
In the "Drive:" field, the system may have already filled in an available one-letter drive indentifier ("Y" in the example shown). The drive name can be whatever letter you want to use as long as it's not already in use. It doesn't have to be "Y" like in this example.
In the "Folder:" field enter the name of the shared folder in the form
\\server.usc.edu\share-name
For example, if the shared folder is "Department-Stuff" and the server is
"ee.usc.edu", then enter the name
\\ee.usc.edu\Department-Stuff
In most cases you should uncheck the "Reconnect at logon" box. If this box is checked the shared folder will remount every time the PC is rebooted.
Next, check the box that says "Connect using different credentials" and then click on "Finish". This will bring up a "Windows Security" box like the one below.
Depending on whether or not your system is set up to use Windows Domains, the next
step may require some trial and error.
Windows may have already put in a what it thinks is the proper username for you to
connect to the file server, but it is almost always wrong for connecting to the
department's servers. In this box you can enter the correct username and
password for the server you are connecting to.
The username that goes in the box should be just the username, like
"weber", "gloria", "boston", not your
email address or some combination of the system name and usename like
"myPC\weber".
Warning: There have been reports that doing a copy and paste operation
to insert the password, rather than typing the letters in by hand, sometimes
doesn't result in the correct password being entered.
Once the username and password has been inserted in their fields, click on the
"OK" button to attempt connecting to the server.
If instead of seeing the shared folder the system now puts up another box
for entering a username and password this is due to an issue with Windows
domains. Click on the Cancel buttons until you are back to the the "Map
Network Drive" screen. Do the same things here as you did before to bring up
the first "Windows Security" box. Enter your username and password as before
but this time put a backslash in front of the username. So if your
username is "eeprof", enter "\eeprof" in the username
box. Click on the "OK" button and see if it will now connect to the
server.
With any luck a window for the shared folder will soon appear.
When you are done using the shared folder, open up the "Computer" window again and look for the shared folders to be listed under the "Computer" heading along the left side. Do a right click on the one you are done with and a pop-up menu should appear. Select "Disconnect" and the shared folder should disappear from the window.
This describes accessing a volume from a Mac running Mac OS X version 10.12 (Sierra) but it should be mostly the same for others version of Mac OS X.
To access a shared folder you will need to have an account on the server system and know your username and password. Accounts are set up by the department IT staff who will notify you by email or in person of your username and password. Usernames are normally the same as your username on other USC system and for your "@usc.edu" email address. The department servers DO NOT use the same passwords as the USC central servers like email.usc.edu. Unless you have changed the password to something else, you will have to use the password given to you by the IT staff to connect to the shared folder.
Macintoshes can access the shared folders using two different networking protocols. The preferred access method for the Mac is using the "AFP" protocol. However they can also use a Windows protocol called "SMB". Once the shared folder is mounted there is little or no noticable difference to the user and both work about equally well. However the process of mounting the shared folder differs slightly. The following steps explain how to use the AFP protocol. Places where the SMB protocol are different are noted.
Important! Starting in Mac OS 10.13, Apple has changed the AFP protocol support and systems running this version of the OS may not be able to connect to the file servers using the AFP protocol. If this is the case, switch to using the SMB protocol as described below.
To access an AFP server from a Macintosh running MacOS X, select "Connect to Server..." from the "Go" menu. This brings up a dialog like the one below that shows the more recent servers that have been used.
Click on one of the addresses in the list of or type in the new address in the "Server Address" box in the form
afp://server.usc.edu
If you need to connect to an server using the SMB protocol, just change the server address to say "smb://server.usc.edu" or click on one of the SMB servers addresses in the list.
After getting the right server address in the box click "Connect". If the server can be found, this will bring up a dialog box like the one below with a place to put in your username and password. Note that SMB servers seem to take much longer to respond at this point then do AFP servers.
For SMB connections the dialog box is almost the same but has a choice of "Guest" or "Registered User". Make sure the "Registered User" is selected.
Enter the username and password and click on "Connect". If the username and password are accepted, it will come back with a dialog box that shows a list of the shares on the server you have permission to access.
Scroll the list to find the one you want to access, click on it and then click the "OK" button. Within a few seconds the icon for the share should show up on the desktop and can be opened up and the files accessed.
To remove the share from the desktop, simply drag the icon for the share to the trash can which should change to the eject icon when this is done.
passwd". You will be asked for the old password and the new
password twice.
If you are not comfortable using the command line tools to change the password, try using someone elses Mac and follow the instructions below on changing the passwords from Mac.
The third option is to contact the system manager and ask him to change the password for you. This should not be done if at all possible since it is strongly preferred that only you know your password.
The file sharing password is the same as the login password on the file
server system. If you can login to the server system, you can enter
the command "passwd" to change the password.
The password can also be changed from the client system by using an option during the authentication process.
On your Mac do a "Connect to Server..." under the Go menu and connect to the server where you wish to change your password as described here. Important: Use the "afp://server.usc.edu" address, not the "smb://server.usc.edu" address even if the share you mount is normally accessed with the SMB protocol. When it connects, make sure it has the right name for you in the Name box. Depending on the version of the Mac OS that are using, there may be a "Change Password..." button to click on, or you can use the pull-down menu from the little gear button in the lower left to select "Change Password...". This will bring up a box where you can enter your old (current) password, and then the new one twice and click OK. At this point you can either continue with the connection process, or use the "Cancel" button to get out of the connection dialog.