This manual uses the following headings and markers to separate relevant sections:
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Chapter Name
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»» Denotes a Sub-Topic.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE •• is something you must read.
• NOTE • is something you should read.
• CHANGES • highlights things new in this version.
A small description of the contents of each Chapter follows its name.
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INTRODUCTION
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•• This section describes what SpaceServer does. ••
SpaceServer is a tool for letting network clients find free space on a server without having to mount its volumes first. It exchanges information with the SpaceAlert utility which is also shareware (and available separately).
The combination provides a very simple and elegant solution to the problem of mounting/unmounting multiple volumes on a Mac network. It works even if you don’t have Macintoshes as your servers. Read the chapter on usage to find out more.
The program is designed to run in the background.
»» System Requirements
-System 7.0 or newer.
-50K of free RAM to run.
-A Mac with 68020 or better.
-A network.
-SpaceAlert shareware utility.
»» SpaceServer Features
-Lets clients instantly find free space on networks WITHOUT mounting volumes.
-Works with Mac and non-Mac servers.
-Runs in the background.
-Use as local or remote server.
-Can keep information about designated volumes private.
-Frees up network from excessive mounting/unmounting traffic.
-Minimal use of memory and network resources.
-Has extensive Balloon Help support.
SpaceServer is an application, it is does not alter any System parameters or files or cause malfunctions in other programs. It can also be launched and quit at any time without fear of damaging your work, your System or itself. You do not have to restart your machine to activate it.
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INSTALLATION
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•• This section tells you how to install SpaceServer. ••
To install SpaceServer, simply copy it onto your hard drive and place it in the Startup Items folder of your System Folder. If you wish you can also place an alias of it in your Apple Menu Items folder. Since this utility is an application, you do not need to restart your computer to use it, just double-click its icon. If you want to stop using it, bring it to the foreground and quit it.
The first time you use SpaceServer the program will be using the default values for providing information to clients. It will export information about local volumes without excluding any of them. To change the settings of the program just bring it to the foreground by selecting its name from the Application menu in the top right of the menubar. See the Usage section to find out more about setting the preferences you like.
• NOTE •
The first time you run the program you'll get a welcome dialog which won't appear thereafter. In addition after you quit the program for the first time, it will automatically go to the background every time it is launched again.
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INTERFACE
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•• This section describes the SpaceServer interface. ••
SpaceServer is meant to run in the background and therefore only needs interaction from you to specify which information to export to SpaceAlert clients. There are three menus. They are titled File, Edit & Setup. These menus give you access to the features in the program. Each relevant menu and its menu items follows.
»» File Menu
-Quit: Exits SpaceServer, ending any pending requests.
»» Setup Menu
-Private List: displays a dialog to edit preferences.
That’s it for the interface.
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USAGE
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•• This section explains the way to set up and use the features of SpaceServer. ••
Most of what you need to know is in the Balloon Help of the program.
There are only a couple of things which you can customize about the behavior of SpaceServer and all are in the Private List dialog which is accessed via the Setup menu.
»» Private List Dialog
There is a little Balloon Help icon near the bottom of the dialog window. If you click in that icon you will enable or disable help balloons. Use that feature to find out what an item in the dialog window does. It is wise to use this feature to get acquainted with all the controls in the dialog.
This dialog has three sections: a list with a label below it, a group of radio buttons and three labelled buttons.
The radio buttons determine whether the SpaceServer will act as a local or remote volume server. A local server only exports the names of local volumes that meet the free space requirements of a SpaceAlert client. Likewise, a remote server only exports names of remote volumes mounted on the machine. All volumes of less than 2MB capacity are assumed to be floppies and SpaceServer will never export information about them. Hardware locked volumes will also be ignored during a request.
Use the Remote server setting if you want to use this machine as an alias to a real server which is NOT a Macintosh or is a Macintosh running Unix. See the SpaceServer and Unix section for details.
• NOTE •
The list will contain only those volumes which belong to the category of the selected radio button.
• CHANGES •
The list is used to prevent SpaceServer from giving information about volumes you wish to keep private. It is made up of the local or remote volumes mounted on the machine as well as unmounted volumes which are currently being kept private. If you double-click on a volume's name a checkmark will appear before it. Volumes with checkmarks before their names will not export information. You can reverse the status by double-clicking the name again. Using the Reverse button has the same effect as double-clicking in the list.
• CHANGES •
The label below the list just tells you that volumes with a diamond are not currently mounted but are already being kept in the list. Unmounted volumes appear regardless of the setting of the local/remote radio buttons. They will remain in the list unless you remove their checkmark. Be aware that this is different from versions prior to 2.0 where you had to use Option-Done to keep unmounted volumes; that is no longer the case.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
When you exit this dialog by using the Done button a new private list is created using only the checkmarked volumes currently showing. That means that if you switch the local/remote setting and exit the dialog you'll lose the other setting's volumes. This is irrelevant because they will be filtered out anyway.
Even when an unmounted volume is kept, if it is mounted during the next time you use the Private List dialog it will be visible only if the proper local/remote setting is on. This means that when you exit the dialog it will be removed from the private list unless it's visible and checked.
• CHANGES •
The exclusion list is now smart enough to differentiate between two or more volumes with the same name.
• NOTE •
The only information given away by SpaceServer is a volume's name and it will only be given if it meets the search criteria of the SpaceAlert client and is not listed as private. No other information is given to clients to prevent any security risks.
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NETWORKS
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•• This section describes the interaction between SpaceServer & SpaceAlert. ••
The FindServers feature of SpaceAlert is a unique tool that lets clients query network servers to find a certain amount of free space. When they use it, they are asked to supply an amount in Megabytes to look for. Instantly, they get a list of volumes which meet the criteria WITHOUT mounting them. Providing support for this feature is the sole reason for being of the SpaceServer utility.
A window appears with a heading that states the amount of free space in MB they're looking for. One by one, qualified volumes will be added to the list. Once the search is ended a total for the number of volumes found will be added at the end of the list.
When a volume is found the name of its computer is listed first, then the name of the zone in which that computer is found. Under these two is a list of the volumes from that machine that qualify in the search.
• NOTE •
The maximum number of volume names returned in the list is twenty. If you need a higher limit, contact me to provide you with modified versions of SpaceAlert & SpaceServer that will fit more volumes in the list.
FindServers is a tremendous time saver for large companies with many servers and lots of volumes. Using it can help lower network traffic by preventing people from mounting multiple volumes just to look for space. It can also save users a lot of time and frustration.
There is one caveat. Of course, it is a BAD IDEA to save files on a network anywhere they fit. DON’T DO THAT. Instead, use this feature to see which of the volumes where the data SHOULD go are available to take it, then just mount one of them by using the Chooser and put the file where it belongs.
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UNIX AND SPACESERVER
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•• This section tells you how to use SpaceServer in a Unix setup. ••
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
The network features of the program work even if you don’t have Macintoshes as your servers.
Here is some information about how your company could use SpaceAlert & SpaceServer in its Mac network to let clients monitor their disk space and find free space on servers quickly, avoiding the frequent mounting and unmounting of network volumes. You can use both programs if your servers are running System 7 or A/UX or even if you have non-Apple (i.e. Sun or other brand) servers running Unix…
If you have a large Macintosh network (10 to 300+ Macs) with several file servers and many clients chances are the clients waste a lot of time when a server fills up trying to look for a volume with enough space to take the data they have. They have to go to the Chooser and mount volumes without knowing beforehand if they will find space there.
If the problem described above applies to your network, SpaceAlert can help. It allows clients to instantly get a list of the volumes available on the servers that have a certain amount of free space, WITHOUT mounting the volumes first. This saves people a lot of time, especially if you take into account their collective mounting/unmounting of network volumes.
The SpaceAlert and SpaceServer utilities are both very small, stable applications (not INITs or control panels) that are designed to run in the background on Macs that have System 7 or newer. They do not patch any System parameters or files, thus making them compatible with all your existing software.
SpaceServer is a tool for letting SpaceAlert clients find free space on a server. It exchanges information with clients very quickly when it is queried.
The combination provides a very simple and elegant solution to this administrative problem of mounting/unmounting that has unique advantages, most notably that it works if you don’t have Macintoshes as your servers. Depending on the organization of the volumes and departments in your company, you could do the following for each server/department or all at once.
If you have Apple, IBM-compatible or other Workstations running Unix as your file servers:
You can run SpaceServer in any one of the Mac clients on your network. You have that one client Mac mount all the volumes of a particular server, say, a SparcStation for example, which people want to find information about.
Using SpaceServer as a "Remote" server you ignore local volumes and export the real server's volume names from the client. Then when the server fills up, other clients who want to find free space on the network just use a menu command in SpaceAlert. They will instantly get a list of all the server volumes which meet their criteria, without using the Chooser and without wasting any time at all.
Besides saving time, you don't even have to worry about interrupting your servers because it's only a client machine running the program.
The FindServers feature is very quick, needing only a minimal amount of information to be exchanged between each SpaceServer and SpaceAlert during a search, so network traffic is not adversely affected. SpaceServer also takes a minimal amount of memory and CPU time. The special client machine in which you mount the Unix volumes does not need to be completely dedicated. As long as you do not tie up the machine doing something else which disrupts background processing a lot, like rendering a 3-D image all day for example, things should be great.
The only thing you would want to do is change the name of the special clients to something which identifies the true name of the server which each represents; you wouldn't want your users to get confused about where a volume is. Something like "SpaceServer_for_ServerName" would do.
If you’re using servers that are running System 7 you can just run SpaceServer directly on them with no need to do the above.
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PURCHASING
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•• This section tells you how to buy/register SpaceServer. ••
• CHANGES •
SpaceServer is shareware, meaning try-before-you-buy software. Try it for a while to see whether or not it suits your needs. I guarantee that you'll like it; and if you do, please pay the asking price of $10 for a site license with unlimited copies at your company. Otherwise if you don't like it you don't have to pay me for it. I'll even give you all the tech support you need regardless of whether you've paid or not.
Although the price of SpaceServer is small and might seem insignificant, it is extremely important that you actually pay me for it. Think about it, $10 is practically nothing to any company that uses computers but it goes a long way for me. Please pay your fair share.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
Make your check out to Hugo Diaz and mail it to the address listed in the next section.
The "About..." box in the program also has the correct price, name and address to send your payment to.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
You need SpaceAlert to use SpaceServer. The use of SpaceAlert is NOT included in the above price. The good news is that SpaceAlert is only $21 for a Site License with unlimited copies. It's virtually nothing but it is important to me that you actually pay that amount. Thank you.
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GETTING HELP
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•• This section tells you how to contact the author for help and feedback. ••
If you should encounter a problem with this program or have any questions, comments, praise or suggestions you can contact Hugo Diaz, the author, at the (617) 924-8768 phone number in the United States. Let him know if there is a feature you would like to see in SpaceServer. Feel free to ask for support or to comment even if you haven't paid for the program. With your feedback maybe I can win you over in the next release.
• CHANGES •
You can also e-mail me at America Online screen name SpceAlert (only 1 'a') or via Internet as SpceAlert@aol.com. Look in the "About..." box of the program for contact information and pricing.
You may also mail a letter (and your payment) to the following address:
H Diaz
32 Whites Ave #6608
Watertown, MA 02172-4351
USA
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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•• This section describes the Copyright information. ••
SpaceServer is protected by Copyright Laws and International Treaties signed by the USA and virtually every country in the world. Unauthorized use, duplication or distribution is illegal.
»» LEGAL MATTERS
This program may be freely distributed provided that:
-It is not sold or rented.
-It is not modified in any way.
-It remains together with its documentation.
-It is not included in a bundle with any other software.
If you’d like to distribute this software on any media (CD-ROM, diskette or other bundle) for which you charge a price, you must get express written consent from the author first. This specifically means any shareware distributors, user groups and CD-ROM publishers.
