Features and Technical Specifications

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 by means of 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 can use 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. All this is done transparently behind the scenes, except if the user must be asked for a password for the new server.

User Interface

Sharity comes with a command line and a graphic user interface. The GUI is used for configuration and to prompt for passwords when a login is required. Mounting, unmounting, login, logout, 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 can store passwords for individual computers or shares as well as passwords for domains. If a password stored in the key chain is applicable, no user interaction is required to log in.

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 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 gruop.

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. Language can be chosen individually by each user 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.