Networking with Mac OS X 10.4 and modern OS's

[el-John-o]

Hey folks!

I've been searching but I can't seem to find the answer.

I have a 15" G4 iMac running OSX 10.4.11. I'm able to connect it to Windows 10 based shares but I can't connect a Windows machine or modern Mac to it or, most importantly, connect it to a modern Mac.

I have a Mac Mini running Big Sur (11.2) that I use as a home server. It is using APFS, I'm not sure if that's causing issues.

I can't connect my iMac to it at all. If I use the go->connect to server trick I get an invalid username or password error, no dialog pops up for me to enter one. I've also tried smb://userassword@server/ which gives me the same error. No computers show up on the network browser.

Any tips? Is this even workable?

Thanks!

 

[eyoungren]

Hey folks!

I've been searching but I can't seem to find the answer.

I have a 15" G4 iMac running OSX 10.4.11. I'm able to connect it to Windows 10 based shares but I can't connect a Windows machine or modern Mac to it or, most importantly, connect it to a modern Mac.

I have a Mac Mini running Big Sur (11.2) that I use as a home server. It is using APFS, I'm not sure if that's causing issues.

I can't connect my iMac to it at all. If I use the go->connect to server trick I get an invalid username or password error, no dialog pops up for me to enter one. I've also tried smb://userassword@server/ which gives me the same error. No computers show up on the network browser.

Any tips? Is this even workable?

Thanks!

Unfortunately, no.

APFS is the issue. Once a drive has been converted to APFS it's inaccessible by older PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard.

For this reason, some people maintain one Mac as a middle ground. New enough to connect to modern Macs but old enough to still accept connections from old PowerPC-based Macs.

Your Windows box might be able to serve that way, or you may wish to set up FTP.

 

[el-John-o]

Unfortunately, no.

APFS is the issue. Once a drive has been converted to APFS it's inaccessible by older PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard.

For this reason, some people maintain one Mac as a middle ground. New enough to connect to modern Macs but old enough to still accept connections from old PowerPC-based Macs.

Your Windows box might be able to serve that way, or you may wish to set up FTP.

Thanks!

Well, that's a bummer. Back to the drawing board I guess!

 

[el-John-o]

Unfortunately, no.

APFS is the issue. Once a drive has been converted to APFS it's inaccessible by older PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard.

For this reason, some people maintain one Mac as a middle ground. New enough to connect to modern Macs but old enough to still accept connections from old PowerPC-based Macs.

Your Windows box might be able to serve that way, or you may wish to set up FTP.

Frustratingly, now it doesn't seem to want to connect to Windows!

I haven't tried in quite a while. But it won't connect to Windows 10! Similar errors.

 

[eyoungren]

Frustratingly, now it doesn't seem to want to connect to Windows!

I haven't tried in quite a while. But it won't connect to Windows 10! Similar errors.

Did you recently update Windows by any chance?

After installing a Windows 10 update on my PC, I can no longer connect to it from Mavericks...

So this has been bugging me for a while, but I'm pretty clueless as to what's wrong. I have a PC I use for video games, which runs Windows 10 LTSC 1809. I have Windows 10's native file sharing enabled, which I used to be able to connect to from my Mac running Mavericks. At some point in the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[el-John-o]

Did you recently update Windows by any chance?

After installing a Windows 10 update on my PC, I can no longer connect to it from Mavericks...

So this has been bugging me for a while, but I'm pretty clueless as to what's wrong. I have a PC I use for video games, which runs Windows 10 LTSC 1809. I have Windows 10's native file sharing enabled, which I used to be able to connect to from my Mac running Mavericks. At some point in the...

forums.macrumors.com

Yeah it's running the latest version of Windows 10. I'll give it a look, thanks!

 

[Riku7]

Are you trying to merely exchange files between them so you wouldn't have to run around plugging and unplugging an external hard disk to distribute files?
Or, are you trying to do something more complicated that involves and requires an operating system, such as access shared libraries in iTunes? I can't help you with the latter, but I'm exchanging files between an iMac G4 and a High Sierra system in my local network.

 

[el-John-o]

Are you trying to merely exchange files between them so you wouldn't have to run around plugging and unplugging an external hard disk to distribute files?
Or, are you trying to do something more complicated that involves and requires an operating system, such as access shared libraries in iTunes? I can't help you with the latter, but I'm exchanging files between an iMac G4 and a High Sierra system in my local network.

Yeah, a lot changed after High Sierra; the tricky part is getting it to play with Big Sur. That's the issue. It'll work fine with older OS's. In the past I've had it connected to Snow Leopard and Windows 7, etc. over the years. But the machines I want to access are kept up to date and thus are running the latest version of Windows 10 and Big Sur (11.2), respectively.

Actually, iTunes library sharing works just fine. I can fire up iTunes and see the iTunes libraries on all my other machines. What I can't do is connect a samba share hosted on either Big Sur or Windows 10.

Transferring files is one thing; but I'd also like something more persistent and reliable than FTP. Though FTP is the only thing I've gotten working so far.

I would actually like to access my iTunes library through SMB (not home sharing) to sync with an older iPod. Of course, I can sync that older iPod with any of the new machines too; it's not a dealbreaker. But it would be cool to keep that iPod docked with the iMac G4 and kept up to date.

I've tried just about every solution and fix I can find but I just cannot get a samba share to work without erroring out.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, a lot changed after High Sierra; the tricky part is getting it to play with Big Sur. That's the issue. It'll work fine with older OS's. In the past I've had it connected to Snow Leopard and Windows 7, etc. over the years. But the machines I want to access are kept up to date and thus are running the latest version of Windows 10 and Big Sur (11.2), respectively.

Actually, iTunes library sharing works just fine. I can fire up iTunes and see the iTunes libraries on all my other machines. What I can't do is connect a samba share hosted on either Big Sur or Windows 10.

Transferring files is one thing; but I'd also like something more persistent and reliable than FTP. Though FTP is the only thing I've gotten working so far.

I would actually like to access my iTunes library through SMB (not home sharing) to sync with an older iPod. Of course, I can sync that older iPod with any of the new machines too; it's not a dealbreaker. But it would be cool to keep that iPod docked with the iMac G4 and kept up to date.

I've tried just about every solution and fix I can find but I just cannot get a samba share to work without erroring out.

I have a PowerMac G3 running Tiger Server 10.4.11. All of my Intel and PowerPC Macs are able to connect to it, both through AFP and SMB. This is where I keep my iTunes library and I use two methods to share it.

1. My PowerPC Macs run iTunes 4.0 as that's the only version that can share a library over the internet (I can access it from outside). That means the server is also running iTunes 4.0.

2. My Macs are running either Songbird (PowerPC) or Nightingale (Intel) and both of these apps allow you to monitor a folder for changes (even while running). I just point the apps to the library on the server share. With iTunes, you either have to use a script, automator action or something else.

Neither Songbird or Nightingale are updated anymore, but they work. I am rapidly moving away from iTunes for music management due to Songbird/Nightingale's ability to monitor a folder. I have a similar type music app on my Thinkpad.

I bring this up because in previous posts we discussed a 'bridge' between PowerPC, Intel and PCs. In my case, this is my G3 server.

Note that I can still connect between all Macs and PCs as the max I am running on my Intels is Mojave and my Thinkpad is Win 7 (I rolled back purposely). That said, I can only use SMB to connect to shared drives that are APFS. They are not visible under AFP.

 

[el-John-o]

I have a PowerMac G3 running Tiger Server 10.4.11. All of my Intel and PowerPC Macs are able to connect to it, both through AFP and SMB. This is where I keep my iTunes library and I use two methods to share it.

1. My PowerPC Macs run iTunes 4.0 as that's the only version that can share a library over the internet (I can access it from outside). That means the server is also running iTunes 4.0.

2. My Macs are running either Songbird (PowerPC) or Nightingale (Intel) and both of these apps allow you to monitor a folder for changes (even while running). I just point the apps to the library on the server share. With iTunes, you either have to use a script, automator action or something else.

Neither Songbird or Nightingale are updated anymore, but they work. I am rapidly moving away from iTunes for music management due to Songbird/Nightingale's ability to monitor a folder. I have a similar type music app on my Thinkpad.

I bring this up because in previous posts we discussed a 'bridge' between PowerPC, Intel and PCs. In my case, this is my G3 server.

Note that I can still connect between all Macs and PCs as the max I am running on my Intels is Mojave and my Thinkpad is Win 7 (I rolled back purposely). That said, I can only use SMB to connect to shared drives that are APFS. They are not visible under AFP.

Thanks!

I'm not sure that I'd have a 'bridge' running 24/7. Maybe I just can't make it work.

I DID manage to get it connected to the Windows 10 machine by enabling SMB 1.0 in Windows. Unfortunately, still can't connect to the Mac Mini.

My understanding is that Big Sur did away with AFP completely didn't it?

 

[AphoticD]

I don’t have a direct solution, but my setup includes a Mac Pro 2008 running El Capitan which hosts many TBs of internal RAID storage + external eSATA RAID + a 4TB USB3 HDD for Time Machine backups.

I then connect any of my Macs running Puma through to Big Sur to file sharing over either AFP or SMB. I can also use the external Time Machine HDD over AFP from any of my Macs running Leopard or later.

I can use a PowerPC OS X system as a bridge to file share to my OS 9 Macs by manually copying files from the MP to the bridge and then pickup on the OS 9 machine via AppleShare IP. I could probably use a software like Dave to bypass this and connect straight to the MP via SMB, but haven’t tried it.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks!

I'm not sure that I'd have a 'bridge' running 24/7. Maybe I just can't make it work.

I DID manage to get it connected to the Windows 10 machine by enabling SMB 1.0 in Windows. Unfortunately, still can't connect to the Mac Mini.

My understanding is that Big Sur did away with AFP completely didn't it?

If you don't want to leave a Mac on 24/7 (I've always done this with every computer I've owned) then maybe a NAS?

Short of that, there's always a large flash drive.

I know digital signing on the PC needs to be turned off (per the thread I linked to above). You can achieve that via a Registry edit if you're still wanting to pursue connecting to the PC.

I have to say though, this is one of the reasons I rolled back to Windows 7.

 

[eyoungren]

I could probably use a software like Dave to bypass this and connect straight to the MP via SMB, but haven’t tried it.

Dave would probably work.

 

[el-John-o]

If you don't want to leave a Mac on 24/7 (I've always done this with every computer I've owned) then maybe a NAS?

Short of that, there's always a large flash drive.

I know digital signing on the PC needs to be turned off (per the thread I linked to above). You can achieve that via a Registry edit if you're still wanting to pursue connecting to the PC.

I have to say though, this is one of the reasons I rolled back to Windows 7.

I don't HAVE a Mac running an older version of macOS to use as a bridge. That's what I meant by that. Every Mac I have except for this G4 is running the latest version of Big Sur.

The Mac Mini running Big Sur is on 24/7, connected to an external thunderbolt RAID array. It uses APFS to create several volumes to be used on my network. The other macs I have are a pair of MacBook Pro's, also running Big Sur and not ideal candidates for a full-time server (they're both used as laptops!), and the iMac G4 in question which already can't connect to the Mac Mini.

Yeah, flash drive is definitely an option for getting the occasional file onto the iMac G4 but it doesn't really accomplish all of my goals. And I would like to have it connected to my file server if possible.

I have finally gotten it connected to my PC and may explore using that as a bridge. I'm not entirely sure how to do that though. Is there a way to do it without using software that copies files to the PC itself?

 

[Riku7]

Yeah, a lot changed after High Sierra; the tricky part is getting it to play with Big Sur.
…
Actually, iTunes library sharing works just fine.
…
I'd also like something more persistent and reliable than FTP.
…
I would actually like to access my iTunes library through SMB (not home sharing) to sync with an older iPod. Of course, I can sync that older iPod with any of the new machines too; it's not a dealbreaker. But it would be cool to keep that iPod docked with the iMac G4 and kept up to date.

I see... Unfortunately I can't help with the more complex stuff, you are clearly more experienced in setting up networks than I am.

What I've got is a USB memory stick in my router's USB port, and I use the computers to connect to it by SMB when needed. Naturally, I don't use it for large files, nor do I store anything super personal there. But in principle, it works very consistently. The only flaw it had was one time when I used it to transfer an Applescript file, and the contents got garbled up due to what must be some kind of format issue of the storage medium. All other files have been fine, and when I'm in doubt, I zip it.

Sorry that this isn't helping, I know what it's like when you've got a clear idea in your head and it would be disappointing to settle for anything less. Hopefully something works out.

 

[Project Alice]

Hey folks!

I've been searching but I can't seem to find the answer.

I have a 15" G4 iMac running OSX 10.4.11. I'm able to connect it to Windows 10 based shares but I can't connect a Windows machine or modern Mac to it or, most importantly, connect it to a modern Mac.

I have a Mac Mini running Big Sur (11.2) that I use as a home server. It is using APFS, I'm not sure if that's causing issues.

I can't connect my iMac to it at all. If I use the go->connect to server trick I get an invalid username or password error, no dialog pops up for me to enter one. I've also tried smb://userassword@server/ which gives me the same error. No computers show up on the network browser.

Any tips? Is this even workable?

Thanks!

You would want to connect with the IP. IE smb://192.168.x.x
Tiger supports SMB so should connect to most things, but AFP is better. I have never used big sur, but in Mojave and Catalina I can still set up AFP shares and connect to them, even with APFS drives. This could possibly be a permission issue. Make sure to log in using the same user account as the shared folder on the modern Mac, not the G4's login.

Unfortunately, no.

APFS is the issue. Once a drive has been converted to APFS it's inaccessible by older PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard.

For this reason, some people maintain one Mac as a middle ground. New enough to connect to modern Macs but old enough to still accept connections from old PowerPC-based Macs.

Your Windows box might be able to serve that way, or you may wish to set up FTP.

I have connected to my Mac Pro on Mojave with PPC macs many times with no issues. It is using APFS. Once something is shared on the network it is no longer APFS or HFS or NTFS or whatever; according to the client computer its just a network share. NFS if I'm not mistaken.
I usually just use AFP, but SMB works too. At least it does on Leopard. I think Tiger's SMB implementation is older and more temperamental.

I have a FreeNAS/TrueNAS server that uses both AFP and SMB 24/7, and I have connected to it all the way from Mac OS 9.x to 10.15, and from Windows 98SE up to 10. AFP or SMB for Mac OS, SMB only for Windows. For anybody looking for a long term file sharing thing that is the best way I've found for nearly perfect compatibility.

Frustratingly, now it doesn't seem to want to connect to Windows!

I haven't tried in quite a while. But it won't connect to Windows 10! Similar errors.

Windows networking is and always has been a PITA. I have had problems even getting Windows to connect to Windows. It's usually a user permission problem. If you need a file quick, just create a folder and share it publicly that way anybody can connect, even as guest. Usually a fool proof way to get network sharing working from Windows. Also make sure that Windows isn't setting your network to "public" as that will basically make any and all file sharing null and void. I've noticed that occasionally Windows will go back to public once in a while on it's own at seemingly random...

 

[el-John-o]

You would want to connect with the IP. IE smb://192.168.x.x
Tiger supports SMB so should connect to most things, but AFP is better. I have never used big sur, but in Mojave and Catalina I can still set up AFP shares and connect to them, even with APFS drives. This could possibly be a permission issue. Make sure to log in using the same user account as the shared folder on the modern Mac, not the G4's login.

Thanks!

Big Sur does not support AFP, hence the need to use Samba for both macOS and Windows shares.

As I said above, I'm not given any opportunity TO log-in. It gives the error without pulling up the dialogue box to login. I've read elsewhere this could be a NetBIOS issue, which I then enabled on the Mac Mini, but to no avail.

I WAS finally able to get it to work with Windows, including pulling up the login and being able to log-in, by enabling SMB 1.0 in Windows.

I have connected to my Mac Pro on Mojave with PPC macs many times with no issues. It is using APFS. Once something is shared on the network it is no longer APFS or HFS or NTFS or whatever; according to the client computer its just a network share. NFS if I'm not mistaken.
I usually just use AFP, but SMB works too. At least it does on Leopard. I think Tiger's SMB implementation is older and more temperamental.

Thanks!

Yeah as I mentioned above, the issue here isn't running one older version of macOS with another older version of macOS. It was working before, though I hadn't used it in a while. It doesn't appear to work with Big Sur. From what I can glean, it may be because for security reasons, Big Sur refuses to accept any SMB 1.0 connections and I've found some ways around that but they haven't worked for me unfortunately. I'll keep trying. I WAS able to enable SMB 1.0 on Windows and get that working; so that may just have to be a solution; using a 'bridge' solution like @eyoungren suggested.

I have a FreeNAS/TrueNAS server that uses both AFP and SMB 24/7, and I have connected to it all the way from Mac OS 9.x to 10.15, and from Windows 98SE up to 10. AFP or SMB for Mac OS, SMB only for Windows. For anybody looking for a long term file sharing thing that is the best way I've found for nearly perfect compatibility.

Yep. I've used FreeNAS in the past and it's fantastic! I may consider it again. I'm using the Mac Mini because it's easy to use and some of the macOS specific features are pretty cool; but Apple has actually removed a lot of those. And some (like pre-downloading software updates for all of my devices) are no longer relevant to me (I went from a 3mbps internet connection to gigabit last year! Thank you, expanding fiber!). That particular feature was a GODSEND when the only option I have was an antiquated DSL connection.

Though I've found the software I use for both syncing other machines (Syncthing) and cloud backup (Crashplan) work the best with fewest issues on macOS, which is another reason I've really appreciated having a macOS "home server". Unlike when I've had FreeNAS as my home server OS, or even Windows 7 (Or XP or... Windows 98 and Windows 2000 if we go back far enough!), when I started using this Mac Mini a couple years ago as my home server it has been the most problem free home server I've ever had. I don't think about it, I don't mess with it, I don't touch it. It just 'exists' on a shelf plugging away quietly. I updated to Big Sur just to keep things up to date and secure, but didn't realize it was going to break compatibility with my vintage macs.

Windows networking is and always has been a PITA. I have had problems even getting Windows to connect to Windows. It's usually a user permission problem. If you need a file quick, just create a folder and share it publicly that way anybody can connect, even as guest. Usually a fool proof way to get network sharing working from Windows. Also make sure that Windows isn't setting your network to "public" as that will basically make any and all file sharing null and void. I've noticed that occasionally Windows will go back to public once in a while on it's own at seemingly random...

Yeah, Windows can be a PITA for sure. Ironically, right now Windows is the only thing I can connect to. (I will say, Windows 10 is the best implementation of Networking on Windows I've ever used) One of the very few things Windows does better than macOS is backwards compatibility. I've got software that's 2 or 3 years old that won't run on my Mac. I occasionally fire up Windows 9x era games on my Windows 10 PC and they just run. Plus you can dig through the 'windows features' window and add functionality that's been defunct for decades... like, for example, Samba 1.0!

 

[Project Alice]

Thanks!

Big Sur does not support AFP, hence the need to use Samba for both macOS and Windows shares.

As I said above, I'm not given any opportunity TO log-in. It gives the error without pulling up the dialogue box to login. I've read elsewhere this could be a NetBIOS issue, which I then enabled on the Mac Mini, but to no avail.

I WAS finally able to get it to work with Windows, including pulling up the login and being able to log-in, by enabling SMB 1.0 in Windows.

Thanks!

Yeah as I mentioned above, the issue here isn't running one older version of macOS with another older version of macOS. It was working before, though I hadn't used it in a while. It doesn't appear to work with Big Sur. From what I can glean, it may be because for security reasons, Big Sur refuses to accept any SMB 1.0 connections and I've found some ways around that but they haven't worked for me unfortunately. I'll keep trying. I WAS able to enable SMB 1.0 on Windows and get that working; so that may just have to be a solution; using a 'bridge' solution like @eyoungren suggested.

Yep. I've used FreeNAS in the past and it's fantastic! I may consider it again. I'm using the Mac Mini because it's easy to use and some of the macOS specific features are pretty cool; but Apple has actually removed a lot of those. And some (like pre-downloading software updates for all of my devices) are no longer relevant to me (I went from a 3mbps internet connection to gigabit last year! Thank you, expanding fiber!). That particular feature was a GODSEND when the only option I have was an antiquated DSL connection.

Though I've found the software I use for both syncing other machines (Syncthing) and cloud backup (Crashplan) work the best with fewest issues on macOS, which is another reason I've really appreciated having a macOS "home server". Unlike when I've had FreeNAS as my home server OS, or even Windows 7 (Or XP or... Windows 98 and Windows 2000 if we go back far enough!), when I started using this Mac Mini a couple years ago as my home server it has been the most problem free home server I've ever had. I don't think about it, I don't mess with it, I don't touch it. It just 'exists' on a shelf plugging away quietly. I updated to Big Sur just to keep things up to date and secure, but didn't realize it was going to break compatibility with my vintage macs.



Yeah, Windows can be a PITA for sure. Ironically, right now Windows is the only thing I can connect to. (I will say, Windows 10 is the best implementation of Networking on Windows I've ever used) One of the very few things Windows does better than macOS is backwards compatibility. I've got software that's 2 or 3 years old that won't run on my Mac. I occasionally fire up Windows 9x era games on my Windows 10 PC and they just run. Plus you can dig through the 'windows features' window and add functionality that's been defunct for decades... like, for example, Samba 1.0!

So it was working prior to Big Sur on your Mini? That’s a little disheartening. Thanks Apple.

If I had a Big Sur install (I’ll get around to it eventually) I would replicate this problem myself and try to solve it. For the time being though I have a couple suggestions for you:

-Upgrade the G4 to Leopard. Leopard has much better networking than Tiger and may (hopefully will) connect to Big Sur via SMB.

-Set up Snow Leopard Server in virtualbox on your Mac Mini. Running Snow Leopard on vbox is actually supported with the Server version. It should work in Vmware or Parallels too if you happen to have one of those already.

 

[el-John-o]

So it was working prior to Big Sur on your Mini? That’s a little disheartening. Thanks Apple.

If I had a Big Sur install (I’ll get around to it eventually) I would replicate this problem myself and try to solve it. For the time being though I have a couple suggestions for you:

-Upgrade the G4 to Leopard. Leopard has much better networking than Tiger and may (hopefully will) connect to Big Sur via SMB.

-Set up Snow Leopard Server in virtualbox on your Mac Mini. Running Snow Leopard on vbox is actually supported with the Server version. It should work in Vmware or Parallels too if you happen to have one of those already.

Yep. From what I can glean, Big Sur disabled SMB 1.0 which is apparently what Tiger needs. It can be easily enabled in Windows 10 (Windows 10 also disabled it, I guess some security vulnerability was found from what I read?), but I can't seem to find a way to make that work in Big Sur. Some have suggested some solutions but those haven't worked for me.

 

[iluvmacs99]

The problem with SMB 1.0 is that it does not support encryption. That means that any attacker who steals a password and logs into an endpoint can capture SMB 1 traffic, view it in plaintext, and even modify the stream to send false commands.

I myself created a middle man server running Sierra that serves older and newer Macs and PCs and that sits behind a security router which serves also my older G4 and my G3 on a private network. I don't like compromising my Windows 10 and my Mac running Mojave just so that they can talk directly to my G4 and G3 Macs. While it's not an ideal setup, it achieves a balance between security and functionality I suppose.

Sorry to not be able to offer anymore ideas to resolve your situation.