Interoperability

Supported servers: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP; Samba, Network Appliance.
Limited testing: AppleShare IP, FacetWin, Compaq Advanced Server, Helios PCShare 3.1, IBM AS400 v5r1/r2, EMC Celerra.

Supported Platforms

Solaris/Sparc version 8, 9, 10; Solaris/x86 version 9, 10; HP-UX 11; AIX 4.3 and higher; Linux (at least kernel 2.0); FreeBSD; OpenBSD; Mac OS X 10.3 and higher; Tru64 Unix. Others on request.

Authentication Mechanisms

NTLM, NTLMv2, NTLMSSP, Kerberos. Kerberos requires that the Kerberos module for Sharity is installed and the computer’s Kerberos subsystem is configured to bind to the Windows domain.

Network Browsing

Two mechanisms: (1) Browsing of Netbios workgroups and servers in “entire_network”, (2) browsing of Active Directory domains, computers and shares in “active_directory”. Netbios browsing depends on the availability of a Local Master Browse (LMB) server. The LMB is found via Netbios name broadcasts. Active Directory is only supported when the Kerberos module for Sharity is installed and the computer's Kerberos subsystem is configured to bind to the Windows domain.

Windows 2000 Domain Integration

Sharity uses Kerberos to log in to the domain and LDAP (Active Directory) to browse server resources. Active Directory is also used to translate numeric user representations (SIDs) to human readable form. Compatible domain controllers include Windows 2000, Windows 2003 and Samba.

Distributed File System (DFS)

When a DFS mount point is encountered on the server, Sharity automatically fetches the referral, chooses the closest resource and returns a symbolic link to the automount directory. This is done transparently behind the scenes - except if the user has to enter a password for the new server.

User Interface

Sharity comes with a command line and graphic user interface. The GUI is used for configuration and to prompt for passwords when a login is required. Mounting, unmounting, login, logout and management of resources and the key chain can be done from the command line and the GUI. Access control lists can only be manipulated from the command line.

Keychain

The keychain stores passwords for individual computers, shares and domains. No user interaction is required to log in if a password that is stored in the key chain is applicable.

File System Objects and Operations

Supported objects: regular files, directories, symbolic links (emulated, must be enabled in GUI), full set of Unix objects if server implements the CIFS Unix extensions (e.g. Samba).
Supported operations: All except file locking.

File System Attributes

Mapping from Windows to Unix: The Unix “write” attribute is mapped to the DOS “write protected” flag. The mapping of the Unix “execute” attribute can be configured. File owner and group are not supported.
If the Unix machine is member of the Windows domain, back and forth mapping of Windows Access Control Lists (ACLs) to Unix ownership and mode flags can be enabled.
If the server supports CIFS Unix extensions (e.g. Samba), all Unix file attributes are supported.
Attributes available through special Sharity command line tools: Access Control List (ACL), file owner and group.

Trial Mode

Trial mode does not require a license key and is available without limitation in time. It is limited to one installation (one seat), one mounted share and one login. You therefore need a demo license to test DFS. Trial mode may only be used for test and evaluation purposes.

Internationalization

Graphic User Interface and documentation are available in English and German. The language can be chosen by each user individually after installation.

Character Set Conversion

Character sets for file names are converted between the server’s encoding and the operating system’s encoding. Conversion tables for DOS Code Pages, ISO 8859 encodings, various Asian encodings such as JIS, ShiftJIS, eucJP and others are provided.