Netshare provides an Enterprise Server user with a personal home page from which they can store, share, and manage their server documents. Netshare is a convenient starting point for using the Netscape Enterprise Server user services: Web Publisher and search. From their home page, users can also obtain information about how they are defined in the server's user directory, such as their name, password, and telephone extension.
To access a user's default Netshare home page, the user types in this URL:
After authentication, the user's default Netshare home page is displayed with a set of links to many server functions:
When you create a Netshare home directory for a user, the user is assigned as the owner of the directory and all its files. By default, only the owner can write to the directory although other users can read the files. Others cannot make any changes to the files unless the owner explicitly provides such access permissions.
This section includes the following topics:
Setting Up the Server and Creating Netshare Home Directories
As the server administrator, you need to configure Netshare for your server and for your server's users before they can use Netshare. Once you have set up Netshare, you need to create a Netshare home directory for any user or group who wants to use Netshare. Netshare provides two types of interface for server administrators: Enterprise Server user interface (Set Up Netshare and Create Netshare) and a Netshare command-line utility.
Before You Start
Before you set up Netshare for your users, you need to be sure that the Web Publishing functions are turned on for your server, that you understand how Netshare's default naming conventions operate, what the configuration file contains, and what it means to mark a user as licensed.
Server Features That Must Be Enabled
In order to use the functions of Netshare fully, including Web Publisher and search, each of these functions must be turned on for your server. By default, they are all enabled, but you may wish to verify their state.
To turn on the Web Publisher, use The Web Publishing State Page in the Enterprise Server user interface.
To check the state of Web Publisher, use The Search State Page in the Enterprise Server user interface.
Note.
If Search is turned on before Web Publishing then the default collection is not created until after a force index is performed. This happens only if Web Publishing is enabled after Search. The reason that the Web Publishing collection does not show up in search is that at the time the search init is run, the web_htm collection has not been created. If you restart the server, then it will show up correctly.
Netshare Directory Naming Conventions
To facilitate handling large quantities of individual home directories for every Netshare user, a naming convention has been defined. Its page is at
doc_root/netshare_directory/home_directory. The default is to use the primary document directory for your server (server/docs), to use /netshare as the Netshare directory, and to use the user's User ID as the home directory's name. Thus, on a default Windows NT installation for the user JDoe, the Netshare user's home directory would created be at C:\Netscape\server4\docs\netshare\JDoe.
As server administrator, you can select one of the additional document directories defined for your server as the document root, and you can define different directories for the Netshare and home directories. If you change these values on the Enterprise Server Set Up Netshare page, the configuration file is changed to reflect your changes, and all home directories added subsequently use the new directory values. If, however, you use the Netshare utility to indicate different directories, the configuration file is not changed, so only the user directories currently being added are affected.
One situation in which you might want to change the default directory path is when you want to create a home directory for a user that does not map to their user ID. For example, the user JDoe wants an additional Netshare directory called Project1. In this case, the user ID would be JDoe and JDoe would be assigned as owner of the Project1 directory.
The Netshare Configuration File
Netshare uses a configuration file, netshare.conf, that contains the following data:
You can only modify this file from the Set Up Netshare page or manually through a text editor. When you use the Netshare utility, the configuration file is not affected.
When you use the Set Up Netshare page to change a default directory or template file, you are updating the values in the configuration file. From then on, any home directory that you create uses the new values.
Marking Users As Licensed
In order to create a Netshare home directory for a user, the user must be marked as having been granted a Client Access License for a Netscape Enterprise Server.
Note.
After your server is installed and before being able to mark a user as licensed, you need to go to the Set Up Netshare page (choose Web Publishing and clicking the Set Up Netshare link). Displaying this page causes an essential modification to an internal configuration file. You need only do this one time after the server is installed.
There are several ways to mark users as licensed:
For a new user, mark the licensing as part of creating a user by following these steps:
From the Administration Server, choose the Users & Groups.
Click the New User link. The New User page appears.
Enter the user's information.
Click Create and Edit User.
Click the Licenses link.
Check "Netscape Enterprise Server" and click Save Changes.
For an existing user, mark the licensing in one of these ways:
For a set of existing users, mark all users as licensed by using the Netshare utility.
Access Control For Netshare
When you create a Netshare home directory for a user ID, the server assigns the user as its owner and the user is the only one who can write to the directory. Other users can read the user's files, but cannot make any changes to them unless the user explicitly provides such access permissions.
The default access permission is to allow anyone defined as a valid server user to read any Netshare directory, but only the designated owner of the Netshare home directory can modify the files.
This is the default ACL that is applied to the Netshare parent directory:
When you create a Netshare home directory for a group, the server assigns ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the owner's user ID. This also gives all users in the group read-write access permission for all files and folders in the home directory. Because this requires creating a new ACL rule for this particular group, this forces the server to restart to pick up the new ACL information.
Using the Server Manager
The Enterprise Server provides pages that allow you to modify Netshare configuration settings (Set Up Netshare) and create Netshare home directories (Create Netshare).
The Set Up Netshare Page
The Set Up Netshare page allows you to modify the Netshare configuration settings. You can change some of the Netshare configuration information for your server and the configuration file is updated with your changes. When you have set up Netshare for your server, you can create Netshare home directories for your users.
To change the values in the configuration file, use The Set Up Netshare Page in the Enterprise Server user interface.
The Create Netshare Page
You can use the Create Netshare page to create Netshare home directories for an individual user, for a specified group, or for all users who have been marked as licensed. The last choice is particularly useful for server administrators who wish to add Netshare home directories for all existing users.
Note.
You must have already set up Netshare for your server before you can create Netshare home directories and Web Publishing must be enabled before your users can use Netshare.
To create a Netshare home directory for a single user, follow these steps:
From the Enterprise Server, choose Web Publishing.
Click the Create Netshare link.
Click "A single user."
Enter the user's user ID.
Ignore the Owner field.
(Optional) Enter another Netshare home directory if you do not want to accept the default of using the user ID.
Click the Create button.
To create a Netshare home directory for a group, follow these steps:
From the Enterprise Server, choose Web Publishing.
Click the Create Netshare link.
Click "A group."
Enter the name of the group.
Enter the name of the group's owner.
(Optional) Enter another Netshare home directory if you do not want to accept the default of using the group name.
Click the Create button.
To create Netshare home directories for all users at once, follow these steps:
From the Enterprise Server, choose Web Publishing.
Click the Create Netshare link.
Click "All users marked as licensed."
Click Create.
This searches through the local or LDAP user directory for your server and creates a Netshare home directory for each user who has been marked as licensed but who does not yet have a Netshare directory. If you attempt to create a home directory that already exists, you receive an error message.
Note. You can use the Netshare utility (the -l option) to perform a batch update,
marking all users as licensed, before using this page.
Using the Netshare Command-line Utility
Server administrators can use the Netshare command-line utility to define the Netshare configuration settings, create Netshare home directories for an individual user or for a batch of users, and display the online help.
Several values are defined in the configuration file; see "Syntax of the Netshare Utility" on page 370 for details. To accept the default values from the configuration file, skip these command-line options. (Some examples of how you can use Netshare are provided for your convenience.) When you enter a different value for an option, it only applies to the home directory or directories being created at that time. If you want to modify the configuration file, you must use Server Manager pages or use your local text editor to edit the configuration file manually.
Note.
In order to run the Netshare command-line utility, you need to manually set the Path variable to include <server_root>/bin/https/bin.
You can use the Netshare command-line utility to:
When you use the Netshare utility to create a Netshare home directory for an individual user, the server marks the user as licensed if not yet marked as such, creates the user's Netshare home directory, and assigns ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the user ID that was entered.
When you use the Netshare utility to create a Netshare home directory for a group, the server marks the group's owner as a licensed user if not yet marked as such, creates the group's Netshare home directory, and assigns ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the owner's user ID. This also gives all users in the group read-write access permission for all files and folders in the home directory.
When you use the Netshare utility to create Netshare home directories for all users at once, the server searches through the local or LDAP user directory for your server and creates a Netshare home directory for each user who has been marked as licensed but who does not yet have a Netshare directory.
Syntax of the Netshare Utility
netshare -u user_ID -r server_root -s server_name [-alXxv -d dir_name -o owner -g group]
Required fields: You must provide the name of your server instance and the path for your server root so that the utility can locate the appropriate configuration file for your server. You must use either the -a (all users) or the
-u (single user) option to indicate which user directories you want to create.
Netshare Utility Examples
(For the server instance moray, creates a Netshare home directory called
/JDoe, assigns JDoe as its owner, and marks the user as licensed if not yet marked.)
(For the server instance churchill, marks all users as licensed and then creates a home directory for each user, assigning them ownership of their own Netshare directory.)
(For the server instance iguana, creates a home directory called /mktg1 for the Marketing group, with JDoe assigned as owner.)
(For the server instance sylvester, creates a home directory called /Project1 for JDoe.)
(Unlicenses all Netshare users known to server instance bonzini.)
(Unlicenses FredB and removes FredB's directory.)
Accessing the Web Publisher Home Page
When you have configured web publishing for your server, you and your users can access the Web Publisher home page at the following URL:
This displays the home page, which provides a link for downloading the web publishing plug-in appropriate for your browser and the Start Web Publisher button, which launches the Web Publisher applet. The page also includes a set of links to a QuickStart tutorial and to the entire Web Publisher online help system, Netshare & Web Publisher User's Guide.
The online help system is also available through user components such as search and Web Publisher. To access the help system, use the Help menu command in Web Publisher, or click Help on the search interface pages or on the Web Publisher Services page.
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