AppleShare

From Free net encyclopedia

AppleShare was a product from Apple Computer which implemented various network services. Its main purpose was acting as an AFP server. AFP is a protocol developed by Apple to allow computers to access files which are physically located on another computer across a computer network. Other network services implemented in later versions of AppleShare were a print server using the PAP (Printer Access Protocol), web server, electronic mail server, and SMB / CIFS server to support file sharing to Microsoft Windows clients.

Earlier versions of AppleShare supported only the AppleTalk network transport protocol but later versions, sold under the name AppleShare IP, allowed use of the TCP-IP protocol stack, as used on most modern networks.

AppleShare would operate with any physical network medium. Early installations used mainly LocalTalk and more recently Ethernet but any physical medium could be used which could be directly or indirectly connected to an AppleShare server system.

Equivalent third party server products include the open-source Netatalk suite on Unix-like systems, and Services for Macintosh on Microsoft Windows NT and 2000. Versions of Mac OS from System 7.5 onwards included Personal File Sharing, which is a more limited AFP implementation. The most obvious difference between Personal File Sharing and AppleShare is that the former supports only a small number of concurrent remote users.

All versions of Mac OS are capable of acting as a client to an AppleShare server, although more recent versions of Mac OS X have gradually removed support for the AppleTalk protocol. Third-party software such as PC MACLAN and DAVE is also available to implement client functionality on Windows systems. Later versions of AppleShare also implemented the SMB and CIFS protocols which are the native file sharing protocols on Windows machines.

Apple discontinued the AppleShare product line following the release of Mac OS X Server which provides equivalent functionality.

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