Once ChronoAgent has been configured on a computer, another computer running ChronoSync can connect to it. Before it can do so, however, a Connection Profile must first be defined in order to establish communication with the agent. A connection profile can be set up within ChronoSync’s Preferences.
Setup Panel
To set up a connection profile, follow these steps:
NOTE: A ChronoAgent must first be installed and configured before setting up any connections to
it.
Step 1. Add Connection.
From the Connections profile panel, within ChronoSync’s Preferences, click on the add (plus)
button.
Step 2. Setup panel opens.
The connections Setup panel appears where you can provide the necessary information to connect
to the agent.
Step 3. Provide profile name.
Provide a profile name. The profile name is what
will appear in the “Connect to:” popup menu on
the Synchronizer document’s Setup panel. Thus,
it’s a good idea to be descriptive with the profile
name so that you know which one it is when
you have multiple agents listed. In this example “Mary’s Computer” was used since it was her computer the agent was put on.
Step 4. Choose agent.
Choose which agent to connect to. When defining ChronoAgent earlier in the manual, “Reception
Area” was used as the agent’s name.
Step 5. Provide username and password.
The username and password of the “Reception Area” agent is required here. If these are unknown, ChronoSync will be unable to connect to that particular agent. The “Use secure connection” option, when checked, determines if communication with the agent should
be encrypted for enhanced security. This isn’t a required setting. As a matter of fact, it may not always be
ideal to use. Enabling this setting will slow down the connection speed.
Be sure to test the connection after all settings have been defined on the connection profile.
User/Group Mappings Panel
Macintosh users have the ability to control who can access, modify, and see their personal files and folders. Every Mac uses a User/Group model to control file security. Every file is owned by a User and associated with a Group. Groups contain multiple users and are an easy way to grant multiple users access to
files which they do not own.
For more reading on users, groups and permissions, check out the following link:
http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/AdvancedUnix/ugp/index.ws
Users and groups simply map to numeric IDs. Each computer can have their own unique set of user/group
names and numeric IDs associated with them so that when you copy a file from one computer to another
it may lose its identity because the exact same users with the exact same IDs do not exist on each machine. This panel allows you to map different users and groups on each machine to each other.
When mapping is disabled, ChronoSync will maintain the numeric ID for user/group membership, e.g. if
a file has a user ownership that translates to an ID of 502 on one machine, it will get copied with an ID of
502 to the other machine, regardless of whether or not a user with an ID of 502 exists on the destination
machine.
To set up user/group mappings, following these steps:
Step 1. Choose tab.
Choose the "User/Group Mappings" tab.
Step 2. Choose option.
Check the "Perform User/Group Mapping" option. If this is unchecked, the mappings will be disabled.
Step 3. Change mappings.
Browse through the list of mappings, changing the ones you wish to have mapped differently.
This can be done as "Local-to-remote" or as "Remote-to-local".
Step 4. Choose OK.
Once you are satisfied with your mapping setup, choose "OK" to close the sheet.
"Local-to-remote mappings" refers to the mapping that is performed when copying a file from the local machine TO the remote machine. "Remote-to-local" is the opposite. In some instances, one side of the user/group mapping may be irrelevant. For example, if you use this connection profile only for left-to-right synchronizations and the right target is your agent, you only need to define local-to-remote mappings since you will never be copying files FROM the remote target back to the local machine. It doesn't
hurt to map both sides, though.
By default, ChronoSync tries to establish the most meaningful user/group mapping it can. For example, if
the user "jdoe" exists on the local machine, it looks for another user named "jdoe" on the remote machine.
If it finds it, the mapping will automatically be established. "jdoe" on each machine can be associated to
different numeric IDs and ChronoSync will automatically handle the translation. If another user by the
same name doesn't exist, ChronoSync then looks for a matching ID. For example, if the local user named
"jdoe" has an ID of 503, CS will look for a remote user whose ID is 503. If it finds it, the mapping will be
established. If that fails, the user "jdoe" will be "Not Mapped".
Entries that are not mapped are displayed in red. A summary is displayed at the bottom of each mapping
list to call attention to the fact that one or more entries may not be mapped. In some cases, it is perfectly
acceptable to leave certain users/groups as "Not Mapped". An example would be various "System" user
accounts, such as "xgridcontroller", that may exist on one computer but not the other. This mismatch
would be irrelevant if all that is being synchronized are user-level files such as those in a user's Home
folder.
There is value of mapping to the "unknown" user (“_unknown” in Leopard). In Mac OS X, "unknown" is
a special user that is accessible to all user accounts. In situations where you want to backup files from one
machine to another and you simply want to make those files accessible to all users on the destination machine, just map the relevant users on the source machine to "unknown" on the destination.
That's it!
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