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accessing an intranet

S

stateski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 4, 2004
2
0
Hi,

We're busily setting up an intranet system on our small office LAN (mostly PC orientated office, win2000 server).

The rest of the office can access the ASP files through their Internet Explorer browsers simply by entering the name of the host server and the title of the ASP files (server01/intranetstuff) into the browser.

However, this doesn't work with any of my Mac browsers, internet Explorer, Safari or even Netscape. All other internet access works as normal, and i can access the server (and see the relevant ASP files) through the Finder, just not open them.

We're stumped as to why this is the case. Surely the point of internet browsers is that they facilitate universal access to stuff like this.

Cheers in advance for any help or advice,
Anthony
 
robbieduncan

robbieduncan

Moderator emeritus
Jul 24, 2002
25,611
893
Harrogate
The Finder is not a Web Browser. This is the major difference. Windows Explorer is just Internet Explorer pretending not to be a web browser! Which is why it works on Windows.
 
S

saabmp3

macrumors 6502a
Jul 22, 2002
868
0
Tacoma, WA
The reason why you can use the windows machines to go to the exact address is probably because you have WINS setup on your 2k server but not the proper DNS setup. WINS stands for Windows Internet (or intranet, same thing) Naming Service. This allows you to go to a computer by name, not IP address. Try replacing the server name with an IP address of work on taking WINS out (something that alot of big companies are slowly doing) and put a correct DNS resolution system in place. That should solve your problem.

BEN
 
tomf87

tomf87

macrumors 65816
Sep 10, 2003
1,052
0
saabmp3 said:
The reason why you can use the windows machines to go to the exact address is probably because you have WINS setup on your 2k server but not the proper DNS setup. WINS stands for Windows Internet (or intranet, same thing) Naming Service. This allows you to go to a computer by name, not IP address. Try replacing the server name with an IP address of work on taking WINS out (something that alot of big companies are slowly doing) and put a correct DNS resolution system in place. That should solve your problem.

BEN
Click to expand...

WINS and Intranets are not the same thing. WINS stands for Windows Internet Naming Serivce, which has nothing to do with web browsing. Using a web browser, even if accessing a protected site on an intranet, will not use WINS; it will use DNS. WINS is only accessed for resolving NetBIOS names to IP address. DNS is another story and resolves host names to IP addresses. Even Win2K Active Directory needs WINS for quick and proper NetBIOS name resolution.

You can also point your Mac to the WINS server by using Directory Access in Applications | Utilities. Click SMB then click configure. Assign the appropriate workgroup (should be the same as your domain) and WINS server.
 
S

stateski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 4, 2004
2
0
cheers, using the IP address worked. We're unlikely to start messing with the WINS system though. It ain't broken so we don't need to fix. Its a case of: make one minor change to the way my Mac works, or change the way the whole PC network functions. I can't see my colleagues falling in love with that idea to be honest.

Once again, thanks for your help.
 
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