Enabling file sharing on Mac using SMB

Windows use SMB sharing to access other computers' file shares on the network. To access a MacOSX machine SMB File Sharing needs to be enabled on the MacOSX machine. This guide is for MacOSX 10.5 Leopard but may work for older versions too.

1. Goto System Preferences (Apple->System Preferences)

2. Click on Sharing icon. The following window will come up


3. Check File Sharing on the left-hand pane



4. Click on Options... button on lower right had side of sharing window



5. In the pop-up window enable Share files and folders using SMB then enable the users who you want to allow access to the shares you will create. You will be prompted for the password of each user that you enable. Click on Done.



6. Now its time to specify the folders that need to be shared on the network. Under Shared Folder click on the plus(+) sign and select the folder that you need to share.



7. For each Shared Folder you can specify what type of access each user has on that folder. Click on the folder you want to specify the access restriction you need to enforce and then click on the pull-down menu for the user you want to modify the access to. The options available are Read & Write, Read Only, Write Only(Drop Box), and No Access. Where Write Only(Drop Box) allows that user to drop files into the drop box but not access any of the files in that folder. To create permissions for users not listed click on the plus(+) button below the Users subsection.