Volume Number: 21 (2005)
Issue Number: 11
Column Tag: Programming

Tips & Tidbits

Making The invisible Files Visable

by Neil Ticktin

Are you on a Mac OS X Server machine, and you want to be able to see all the files all the time? Maybe your the admin for the machine, and you are sick of having to bring up the Find window and looking for the invisible files that way.

There is a setting in the Finder settings that will allow you to show all the files. To do this, simply pull up your Terminal app on the machine in question, type in:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

press return, and then either log in/out, or restart the computer. After that, all files on that machine will be visible.

To undo this, do the reverse.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

Mac OS X Server Admin AFP Access

Are you looking to set up AFP access for the administrator on your Mac OS X Server machine that allows you to see the entire drive on the machine running Mac OS X Server?

The default setup for a user allows you to see three subvolumes -- Groups, Users, and Public. If you want to administer the web sites folders, or even things at the root level of the drive, you have to give yourself additional privledges.

The easiest way to do this for the administrator is through the Terminal app. Just type in:

sudo serveradmin settings afp:admin31GetsSp = no

Thanks to Dean Shavit at Macworkshops.com for the background on this.

Neil Ticktin is the publisher of MacTech Magazine.