Assorted problems with File Sharing

File Sharing: Public Folder access problem solved We previously noted a Forums thread (OS 9 to OS X File Sharing failure) where we described problems with accessing Mac OS X File Sharing to work. In our most recent postings, we note that deleting existing User accounts and recreating new ones solved the issue where Guest access to Public folders failed. We suspect this is related to the fact that these accounts were originally created under Mac OS X Public Beta.

MacSSH failure in 10.0.2 A reader reports that, after updating from Mac OS X 10.0.1 to 10.0.2, he can no longer connect using MacSSH: "I enter the IP address of the machine running X, enter username and password and then try to connect. The terminal window flashes briefly and then nothing. It worked fine in 10.0.1." We have had the exact same symptom; we are currently investigating whether it relates to some firewall setting (in our router).

Update: Two readers (Steve Burling and Julian Koh) report the same suggestion for solving this problem. Following their advice, this is what we did:

1. Select Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and type: /private/etc
2. Open TextEdit with Root access. To do this without using Terminal, you can use Pseudo. Just drag the TextEdit icon to the Pseudo icon and enter your admin password when asked. Or, you can use sudo open from Terminal (as explained more here).
3. Double-click the file in etc called sshd_config. Select to use TextEdit to open it, when asked.
4. Add the following line (probably best to add it right before or after the line that says "HostKey /etc/ssh_host_key"): HostKey /etc/ssh_host_dsa_key.
5. Save the file and quit TextEdit.
6. Restart the Mac to make sure that all networks services have been updated with the change.

We tried this, but it still did allow MacSSH to work. Unfortunately, the reason seems to involve yet another problem which just appeared: we can no longer enable "Allow remote login" in Sharing. We check it and close the window. But when we reopen it, it is unchecked again. Other changes, such as "Allow FTP access," stick just fine. <sigh>

Update: Undoing the change listed above allowed us to enable "Allow remote login" again. A check of system.log (most easily accessed from the Console utility) showed that, with the change to that file, no Host Key was loading and NetInfo Server was shutting down. Reverting to the original contents eliminated the error. We continue to investigate.

FTP glitch? Avni Klein used Interarchy running in Mac OS 9 to download files from a remote computer running Mac OS X that had "Allow FTP access" enabled from the Sharing System Preference. It worked except that all the files arrived without their type and creator codes. Avni writes: "It's as if the OS X FTP server did not understand MacBinary (an error message in the log said 'MACB E not understood') and so doesn't send type and creator info."