Macintosh Resources

Printing

Adding one or more departmental printers to your Macintosh isn't difficult, and we have easy-to-follow instructions ready for your perusal.

There are two caveats, however: the username on your Macintosh's local account must match your CSE username, and if you are connecting wirelessly, you must be on the "CSE-Local" network, and not the "University of Washington" network.

Network File Access

There are several ways of accessing networked file shares on your Macintosh. These methods assume that your Macintosh is connected to the department's network; i.e., you're not working from home or some remote location.

Mounting Your Home Directory

These steps will identify the fileserver on which your home directory is stored, and then mount it, via SMB (Server Message Block), on your Macintosh.

  • On a Linux host, type "df | grep username" and look for "/homes/gws/username". Make a note of the hostname at the very start of the output of this command - likely echo, barb, or coco.
  • On your Macintosh, select Go > Connect to Server... from the Finder, and enter "smb://hostname/homes/" in the "Server Address" field, and press "Connect".
  • When prompted, enter your CSERESEARCH account password.

Mounting a Project Directory

Network shares for specific research projects can be found on many departmental fileservers, or on the fileservers of a particular research group. These steps will help you identify the fileserver on which the project directory you seek is stored, and then mount it via SMB.

For the purposes of this example, we are looking to access the "cranio4" project directory. Were we on a Linux host, a simple "cd /projects/cranio4" would suffice. We'll need to do a little more work... but only a little.

  • On a Linux host, type "grep cranio4 /etc/auto.projects" and examine the output of that command:
    cranio4      cranoilin:/m-cranio4/&
    The "cranio4" project directory is stored on the host named "craniolin".
  • On your Macintosh, select Go > Connect to Server... from the Finder and enter "smb://craniolin/projects/cranio4" in the "Server Address" field, and press "Connect".
  • When prompted, enter your CSERESEARCH account password.

If the project directory you seek isn't in "/etc/auto.projects" it may be in a research group-specific file, such as "/etc/auto.projects.dm" or "/etc/auto.projects.grail".

If the project directory you seek is on an instructional fileserver, you'll want to look in the "/etc/auto.projects.instr" file for the directory name, and use your CSEPCLAB account password to connect to that fileserver.

Mounting a Remote Directory with "sshfs"

  • Install the OSXFUSE and SSHFS packages from http://osxfuse.github.com/.
  • Open the "Terminal" application.
  • Create the mountpoint: mkdir MOUNTPOINT.
  • Mount the remote directory: sshfs -p 22 username@host:/path/to/remote/directory MOUNTPOINT -oauto_cache,reconnect,defer_permissions,negative_vncache,volname=MOUNTPOINT.
  • You'll be asked for your password - this would be your Kerberos password.
  • MOUNTPOINT is now the mount point for that remote directory.

Software

  • Sophos anti-virus software is available through the UWare program.
  • VMWare Fusion is available through the department at this link.
  • The MSDNAA program offers free or discounted versions of Microsoft software for the Macintosh, including Windows 7, Office 2008, and Office 2011.
  • The Messenger and Remote Desktop applications for the Macintosh are free downloads from Microsoft.
  • The University makes a number of Macintosh software packages available for free or at a reduced cost, through their UWare program.
  • Apple hardware and software is available to students, faculty and staff through the University Bookstore, as well as directly from Apple, for personal and departmental purchases.
  • We have operating system (Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion) and application-suite (iLife, iWork) software available for installation on your University-owned Macintosh computer (sorry, we can't install on personally-owned computers). Send e-mail to "support@cs" for more information.

Community Support

Many of the Macintosh-using students, staff, and faculty in the department are members of the macusers@cs mailing list.

There's also a user-supported wiki though much of the content there is out of date.

Last changed Wed, 2013-04-03 10:13