Setting up a home network to develop Cold Fusion, ASP and PHP applications on a Macintosh.

I'm a Cold Fusion developer who prefers the Mac as my environment for development. I've long had the dream of being able to spend my time in BBEdit to develop my server side applications, and have finally learned how to do it. I thought that I would share my experiences in setting up a Mac/PC home network for file sharing as well as for sharing web resources, so that others in the same boat may have a path to follow. One must of course have a Mac, a PC and the required software for all of this to work.

Note: This document isn't intended to be authorotative, it's meant to help those poor souls who might be thrashing in the midst of confusion and mental anguish as they try to get this set up. Thus, I present only a minimum amount of information to get them stated. You'll run into the phrase 'RTFM' and 'RTFH' frequently, I'm sure. Onward ho!

The Network Basics

The network I use is small. It consists of two machines. (Four actually, but only two are involved in the development process. The rest run SETI at home ). My Mac is running system 9.1, and the PC is running Windows 2000 Pro. I edit the application files, create the HTML and collaterals such as flash and images on the Mac. The PC runs the HTTP, FTP and SMTP and Cold Fusion server.

This guide assumes that you are using the above, and that you have a connection to a cable or DSL for net access. This might work if your connection is to a LAN as well, but that would kind of make this guide useless, neh?

The network consists of two parts: File sharing, and TCP access. Let's make sure we've got the environmentals set up right.

Hardware Setup. Ensure that the following is true:

1. Your PC and Mac are correctly plugged in and that the OSs are good shape.
2. Your hub (the little box that connects all the ether net cables together) is correctly plugged in, and powered. Tip: Label both ends of an ether net cable with a piece of tape, and the machine it belongs to. This simple thing could save you a lot of hassle.
3. The ethernet cables are of the right type, and that they are good. Often, the modem, hub and ethernet cards will have a little green light that will turn on when the cable is correctly connecting. Check it out.
4. The hub will usually have one port that serves to connect to the modem, or the out-going connection to the net or the LAN. Make sure the modem is plugged into the correct port.

Getting ready for file sharing.

Getting your Mac ready. Ensure that the following is true: The latest version of Open Transport is installed. (Check Apple.com for the details on which is the latest.) AppleTalk is installed and correctly running. (Check out the Apple Help Center from your Help menu for the details.)

Getting your PC ready. Ensure that the following is true:
REMEMBER: This assumes that you are using Win2kPro or some NT based machine. You'll have to figure out the difference in OS ('95,'98,ME) on your own.

Setting up your computer identity.
For web services, you may have to install them from your Win2KPro disk. They aren't installed by default.

1. Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'.
2. Choose 'Network Identification'
3. Choose properties'
4. Ensure that your computer has a name. I call mine 'localhost'.

Setting up PC file sharing permissions.

1. Navigate to your desired folder to share. (I share my whole D: disk)
2. Right click on 'My Computer:[the folder you want to share]' and select 'Properties'.
3. Choose 'Sharing'
4. Choose 'Share this folder', give it a name, and a comment.

Setting up PC web sharing permissions.

1. Navigate to your desired folder to share. (I share my whole 'Inetpub' folder)
2. Right click on your chosen web folder and select 'Properties'.
3. Choose 'Web Sharing'
4. Choose 'Share this folder'.

Setting up the file sharing network.

I use PC MacLan 8.1 for the file sharing. The file sharing is done using Apple's AppleTalk protocol. In this case, the PC will be the host. Win2kPro doesn't come with the AppleTalk service. PC MacLan takes care of this.

AppleTalk on the Mac

1. Ensure that AppleTalk is installed correctly.
2. Ensure that you have correctly set up your user name.

PC MacLan on the PC

1. Ensure that you have correctly installed PC MacLan.
2. Ensure that you have correctly set up your user name.

Configuring PC MacLan. Once PC MacLan has been correctly installed, check your task bar (lower left of the screen) to see if it's there. Double click it, read the help. Choose the 'Configure' menu, or click the buttons one by one.

1. Configure: Server Information
2. Choose 'Server Information'. Give your the machine a name that will appear in the chooser.
3. Choose the options you want.
4. Click OK.

Configure: Users and Groups

1. Choose 'Users and Groups'.
2. Click on 'Go to User Manager'

1. Ensure that there's a Group with God Access
2. Click on 'Users' and create yourself (your Mac) as a user. Enter the necessary details, make sure you've got the details right.
3. Set the user as belonging to the god access group. 'Administrators' is a good bet.
4. Close the window, and click the 'Refresh' button in the 'Users ↦ Groups' window. Make sure you can see yourself, and that your password is correct.

Configure: Share Folders

1. Choose 'Share Folders'. Ensure that you are sharing your desired folders..
2. Choose the options you want.
3. Click OK.

Configure: File Extension Mapping

This is a list that will set the type and creator of a file to match an extension. If you aren't clear on what they should be, go to your Mac and look into your File Exchange control panel, or your Internet control panel. For the last, look at Advanced->File Mappings.

Go to the chooser, click on AppleShare, you should be able to see your PC name. If not, check the environmentals and RTFM&H. If you do, load it up, and you should be able to access the files on your PC. Yay!

Setting up the internal TCP/IP network.

I use my Mac as the gateway. Using IPNetRouter, I set my current internet account as the access point, with my TCP/IP settings as I normally would for single machine access. IPNetRouter then creates a 'Gateway' to which all of my machines other than the Mac point to know where is what. This enables me to allow my four machines to connect to the net as well as allowing my other machines to refer to each other by an IP address (that is resolved by IPNetRouter).

Once you have an IPNetRouter setting, you will most likely see two lines in the interface window: The first line will describe the current connection. The second line will describe the 'Router' or the 'Gateway'. Take close note of the IP address and the subnet mask. Set up your other machines, including your PC with that same IP address+1, and subnet mask. Lets just say that the IP in the second line of the IPNR interface is: 192.160.233.1 is and the subnet is: 255.255.255.0 . You'll want to do this Mac: Standard settings in TCP/IP control panel: unchanged. PC: IP address: 192.160.233.2. Other computer IP address: 192.160.233.3, another computer IP address: 192.160.233.4, etc... The subnet should be the same for all but the gateway/router computer.

Each machine now has it's unique IP address, and share a subnet mask. Each machine should also be given it's DNS number. (DNS is what allows a computer to use a domain instead of an IP when you type something into the URL bar of your browser). Each control panel will most likely want the DNS address of your ISP.

At this point, each machine should be able to interact with the net. Test it to make sure this is true. Now, we need to make the Macs access our PC's web services.

Note: I busted my head for days on this. Please grant me a moment's patience as go though the following: IIS is a multi-user OS. The web server is meant to deal with multiple web sites. Uhm... Duh!

1. From your START menu, choose Programs->Administrative Tools->Internet Information services.
2. On the left side of the window, you should see Internet Information services. 2click on it to see [+][Your computer's name]
3. Here's the trick: ready? Do *not* select the properties for your computer. Read that again.
4. Right click on your default web site.
5. Re-read the above as I slap myself in the head a couple more times.
6. Ouch! Enough. So now that you've got the properties for your default web site, select the 'Web Site' tab. Enter the IP address of your computer. This should make all the web sites in your wwwroot folder available.
7. Assuming that you were able to access your sites locally, and that the server software was all working, you should now be able to access the documents on your PC via the IP address. You should be able to access your web sites though http://192.160.233.2/MyWebSitesFolder/
8. Repeat similarly for FTP and mail.

Kumbaya Baby! Rock 'n Roll and lotsa good stuff!

At this point, we should be able to do the following: 1) Share files between Mac and PC, 2) have all computers touch the net, 3) have local computers touch the PC though it's HTTP servers. Are we happy campers yet? I am!

I recognise that there are probably more elegant ways to accomplish all of this, and there are most likely better ways, choices and options. Well, I got it working! So there. I'm a programmer, not a network admin, and hope that others like me will find this useful. If you've got suggestions, or additional information, or wish to actually add to this document, please contact me. (Info at the end of this doc).

Setting up the BBEdit environment. Some tips and tricks.

I prefer to edit my files in BBEdit, because quite frankly, no other text editor on the market across any platform comes close to having the polish, features and user/developer friendliness that BBEdit has. Here are some of the tricks that I've learned over a couple of years to take advantage of it.

1. Download and use Frank's Cold Fusion Glossary for BBEdit. This glossary contains all the tags and functions found in the Cold Fusion Studio editors. Great for remembering just what attributes a tag or function uses.
2. Download and use Frank's Cold Fusion Scripts. This collection of scripts mimics a lot of features that Cold Fusion Studio has, as well as including a number of other time saving features to make editing your CF documents more enjoyable. The best way to use these is to set the scripts to a key command.

Tools described in this article:

Operating Systems

1. Apple Macintosh OS 9.1
2. Microsoft Windows 2000 Pro

Networking

1. PC MacLAN 8.1
2. IPNetRouter 1.5

Serving

1. Microsoft Personal Internet Information Service (IIS)
2. Macromedia Cold Fusion Server 4.5

Editing

1. Barebones BBEdit
2. Frank's Cold Fusion Glossary for BBEdit

Fun Stuff!

1. SETI at home screen saver.

Final Notes

I appreciate any comments on this article, you can send them to me at [email protected]. That having been said, I disclaim any position of being an expert, or even being knowledgeable on the subject of networking. This article is as much to share with others as it is to keep a backup of what I did in case I ever blow it and need to look up just what it is that I did! Feel free to email me in regards to questions to clarify points of the contents of this article, but I will not be able to answer an questions regarding your own particular setup.

PostScript: *sigh* as is almost always the case, after one has solved a problem, the answer appears every where. There is a fairly comprehensive tutorial that can be found at http://www.macwindows.com/netbasic.html