HELIOS server products on Mac OS X 10.4 or Mac OS X Server 10.4

Powerful server solutions with the ease-of-use of the Macintosh

Apple's Mac OS X provides a stable operating system, with an excellent UNIX-foundation and the ease-of-use of a Macintosh. Running HELIOS products on Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.4 provides excellent server solutions which have been proven on all major UNIX platforms.

Macintosh-based remote server administration with EtherShare Admin on Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X can be done by any experienced Macintosh user. The combination of Mac OS X and HELIOS' products enables all users to benefit from the most advanced server solutions available today.

HELIOS benefits with EtherShare UB, PCShare UB and WebShare on Mac OS X 10.4 or Mac OS X Server 10.4

Superior Printing System

Server Fail Safety

True Win/Mac Cross-Platform Compatibility

Server Administration

Optional features for prepress customers

The unique HELIOS advantages on Mac OS X 10.4 or Mac OS X Server 10.4:

Superior Printing System

	EtherShare/PCShare on Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4 Stand alone	Mac OS X Server 10.4 Stand alone
AppleTalk/PAP spooling	YES	NO	YES
Windows SMB/CIFS spooling	YES (via PCShare)	NO	YES (via Samba)
TCP/IP Remote LPR spooling	YES	NO	YES
TCP/IP SLP spooling	YES	NO	NO
TCP/IP SLP Mac OS 9 printer driver	YES	NO	NO
TCP/IP SLP Mac OS X printer driver	YES	NO	NO
UNIX command line spooling (lpr)	YES	YES	YES
Balance queue spooling (Distribution of jobs to other available queues)	YES	NO	NO
Custom spool directory per printer queue	YES	NO	NO
Job pipelining to multiple printers	YES	NO	NO
	EtherShare/PCShare on Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4 Stand alone	Mac OS X Server 10.4 Stand alone
AppleTalk/PAP	YES	NO	YES
Windows SMB/CIFS	YES (via PCShare)	NO	YES (via Samba)
TCP/IP Remote LPR	YES	YES	YES
TCP/IP Stream socket	YES	NO	NO
Print to disk	YES	NO	NO
Print to pipe/script	YES	NO	NO
Create PDF (Option: )	YES	NO	NO
Job previews (Option: PrintPreview)	YES	NO	NO
Time Queue (Specified printing times)	YES	NO	NO
Clone Queue (Duplicate print jobs)	YES	NO	NO
Load Balance Queue	YES	NO	NO
Rendevouz printer	NO	YES	YES
Print Job/Queue Management
Reprint print job	YES	NO	NO
"Error Queue" for failed print jobs	YES	NO	NO
"Hold Queue" for successful print jobs	YES	NO	NO
"Drag & Drop" of print jobs between queues	YES	NO	NO
Retains original user name	YES	NO	NO
Detailed printer accounting	YES	NO	NO
Special printer administration permission	YES	NO	NO
AppleTalk/PAP hide printer	YES	NO	NO
AppleTalk/PAP hide queue	YES	NO	NO
AppleTalk supports queue authentication	YES	NO	NO
Enforce foreground printing (No spool files on Mac OS 8/9 printers)	YES	NO	NO
PostScript font management	YES	NO	NO
Advanced Print Reliability (e.g. a problem with one printer will not affect the printing system)
Separate print daemon for each active queue	YES	NO	NO
Separate print process for each print job	YES	NO	NO

Server Fail Safety

The following figure shows HELIOS' three levels of service reliability.
This unique safety feature is only available from HELIOS:

	EtherShare/PCShare on Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4 Stand alone	Mac OS X Server 10.4 Stand alone
Server Process Reliability
Three levels of service reliability	YES	NO	NO
Separate process per active Mac client	YES	NO	NO
Separate process per active Win client	YES	YES (Samba)	YES (Samba)
Separate process per active print job	YES	YES	YES
Separate process per active spool job	YES	NO	NO
Automatic process restart on failure	YES	NO	YES (only AFP Server, not for printing and SMB)
Server Process Security
AFP file security enforced by operating system	YES	NO	NO (AFP server runs always as root)
AFP Server failure will disconnect all users	NO	YES	YES
Individual users can be monitored via UNIX tracing tools (e.g. "fs_usage", "ktrace")	YES	NO	NO for AFP, YES for SMB
Process auditing and monitoring	YES (all HELIOS services)	NO	NO

True Win/Mac Cross-Platform Compatibility

	EtherShare/PCShare/WebShare on Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4 Stand alone	Mac OS X Server 10.4 Stand alone
Shared Volumes
Unicode file names	YES	YES	YES
Mac/Win "Umlauts", e.g. öäü...	YES	YES	YES
Cross-platform file/folder permissions on client	Mac/Win/Web	Mac	Mac
Full support of special characters across platforms	YES	YES	YES
File locking between Win/Mac (e.g. "doc1.pdf" used on a Mac should be busy on Windows)	YES	YES	YES
File locking with Word Mac/Win	YES	NO	NO
File locking with Excel Mac/Win	YES	NO	NO
Record locking between Win/Mac	YES	NO	NO
Windows oplock caching support, compatible with AFP	YES	NO	NO
Windows File Streams support	YES	NO	NO
Quota disk limit support	YES	NO	NO
File sharing via web browser	YES (via WebShare)	NO	NO
DHCP Server for Win/Mac clients	YES	NO	YES
Scripting via UNIX Desktop Tools (mv, chmod, touch, incl. desktop update)	YES	NO	NO
Apple Xsan compatibility	YES	limited (no fast FindFile, no exchange file)	limited (no fast FindFile, no exchange file)
Print Jobs
Same printer queues on Mac/Win	YES	NO	YES
Same job names on Mac/Win	YES	NO	NO
Mac can print to Windows queue	YES	NO	YES
Win can print to AppleTalk queue	YES	NO	YES
User Accounts
Shared user names between Mac/Win	YES	YES	YES
Shared passwords between Mac/Win	YES	YES	YES

Server Administration

Freedom to choose the Server platform:

	EtherShare/PCShare on Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4 Stand alone	Mac OS X Server 10.4 Stand alone
Software upgrade path to medium and large servers	YES	NO	NO
Server data format compatibility between servers	YES	NO	NO

HELIOS products are supported on the following platforms:

Sun Solaris

IBM AIX

Hewlett Packard HP-UX (IA-64)

Apple Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server (PPC or Intel)

Linux (x86_32 PENTIUM; 32- and 64-bit)

Apple Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server

Windows (32- or 64-bit)

Depending on server performance, storage requirements, as well as hardware and software maintenance, the customer can choose the preferred server platform to run the HELIOS software on. For a maintenance fee, all HELIOS products can be transferred from one platform to a new one.

All configurations and volume file formats are fully compatible between all HELIOS platforms.

Product information on HELIOS File and Print Servers:

HELIOS EtherShare
Highest-Performance server for Macintosh clients

HELIOS PCShare
Highest-Performance server for Windows clients

HELIOS WebShare
Highest-Performance server for real time remote file access

Optional features for prepress customers...

...going far beyond standard file and printer services:

HELIOS ImageServer
Server-based automated Image Conversion, ICC Color Transformation, OPI Replacement and Printing

HELIOS PDF HandShake
Create PDF Server · PDF Preflight · PDF Printing · PDF OPI

HELIOS PrintPreview
Local and Remote Proofing on Monitor and Printer PostScript 3/PDF Compatible Preview Rendering

Glossary of Macintosh-related terms

AppleTalk/PAP
If you wish to see output devices appear by name and zone in the "Chooser" of a Macintosh client, you need this feature. AppleTalk and Printer Access Protocol (PAP) are networking protocols developed by Apple for allowing Macintosh workstations to connect to printers. These protocols are still in use alongside the more common Internet protocol TCP/IP to allow users to locate and print to devices easily and quickly.
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SMB/CIFS
If you wish to see output devices appear by name and workgroup in the "Network Neighborhood" of a Windows client, you need this feature. SMB, which stands for Server Message Block, is a protocol for sharing files, printers, serial ports, etc. CIFS stands for Common Internet File System.
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TCP/IP Remote LPR
UNIX command line spooling (lpr)
The acronym "LPR" stands for Line Printer Requester and has been the default protocol for more than 10 years used by UNIX to access printers. The LPR starts the LPD (Line Printer Daemon).
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Balance queue
You may direct your print jobs to a balance queue. In a balance queue two or more printers form a group of printers from which the print jobs are shifted to a second or third printer in this group whenever the first printer is busy with a huge job.
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Job pipelining
With the "Job pipelining" feature you can send print jobs to a (previously defined) sequence of output device queues, e.g. a hold queue. In industrial printing processes the sequence may be:

1. Laser Printer, then pipelining to a
2. Proof Printer, and finally pipelining to an
3. Image Setter

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Stream socket
The support of a bi-directional PostScript printing via a TCP stream socket, including feedback from the PostScript engine about printing problems. TCP stream printing is a description of the TCP stream protocol which is an output filter option in the EtherShare spooler for communication between spooler and RIP or printer. TCP stream is a standard UNIX protocol. We recommend TCP/IP stream for TCP/IP RIPs because application programs are able to interrogate printer font lists, receive printer error messages and abort print jobs which are already processing.
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Print to pipe
See Job pipelining above.

Job previews
Print your PostScript jobs to a PrintPreview queue and receive a pre-production preview on your monitor screen. See the Figure below for a workflow diagram:

For more details about print job previews see the HELIOS PrintPreview product information.
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"Error Queue" for failed print jobs
If your print jobs reveal network, PostScript, or OPI errors while being processed, they are forwarded to an "Error Queue".
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"Hold Queue" for successful print jobs
Usually, print jobs vanish after they have been sent to the output device. Hold queues act as a kind of archive. All print jobs that have been sent to this specific printer queue are printed and stored for a given period of time in the connected hold queue. They can be restarted even if the application that has initially launched the job has already been closed. All "correct" print jobs automatically proceed to the hold queue after printing.
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Special printer administration permission
There are two different printer administration groups, namely "PrnAdm" and "QueueAdm". One group is only allowed to manipulate print jobs, the other one ("QueueAdm" group) is allowed to apply changes to the configuration of print queues.
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AppleTalk requires queue authentication
Printing to LaserWriter queues is password-protected if the "Require Authentication" option in the EtherShare Admin is set. Thus, print jobs can only be processed on LaserWriter-queues after correct authentication. This option affects all LaserWriter printer queues on the same server.
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Enforce foregroud printing (No spool files on Mac OS 8/9 client computers)
The Mac OS 9 LaserWriter (version 8.7) printer driver's behavior is background printing by default. This means that spooling of print jobs is performed two times, locally on the Macintosh and on the selected printer queue. The EtherShare print server however induces Apple's LaserWriter printer driver to spool the jobs directly on the selected queue by default.
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PostScript font management
The spooler does support DSC (Document Structuring Conventions) resource management comments, including requests for management of font resources. This means that print jobs can reference fonts stored on the server without the client needing to include the fonts in the print job. The print spooler will tell print clients about the fonts stored on the server as well as fonts stored on the printer itself.
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Separate Processes
This feature prevents the failure of the server process for a single client from bringing down all the served clients on the network. By having a separate process for each client computer, each user is effectively insulated from other users. The more users on the network, the more important this feature.
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Automatic process restart on failure
The HELIOS Service Controller monitors all processes which have been started on the server. In case a process should fail, the Service Controller restarts this process after a short time.
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AFP file security enforced by operating system
As EtherShare and PCShare spawn one separate server process per workstation user they set the user's credentials for this process so the process can only touch files allowed for that particular user. The operating system enforces the permission checks on a per process basis.
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Unicode file names
M,nchen, K^ln, K~benhaven, GijÛn. These would all be nice places to visit – if you could guess their names! We are, of course, referring to München, Köln, Københaven and Gijón. This is a typical example of the kind of problem that can arise with character set conversion. Our software is smart enough to save file names in the 16-bit Unicode UTF-8 format which contains more than 65,000 characters. And this means there are no more riddles to solve – everything looks the way it should.
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DHCP
Acronym for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. A TCP/IP protocol that enables a network connected to the Internet to assign a temporary IP address to a host automatically when the host connects to the network. This method, called dynamic address allocation, is less work for the system administrator, especially in large networks. You can configure this option with the PCShare Admin.
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Scripting via UNIX Desktop Tools
Any manipulation to a file or folder inside a Macintosh volume using ordinary UNIX commands like "cp", "mv", "rm", or other programs, will cause an inconsistency between volume information and the related desktop database. Especially restoring files from a backup will trigger such an inconsistency. This is because each Macintosh file consists of two parts, the so-called "data fork" which is stored as a standard UNIX file, and a corresponding "resource fork" which is stored by EtherShare in an ".rsrc" subdirectory. Additional information for each file is stored in a corresponding entry in a volume based "desktop" database. Therefore, when using UNIX commands, each operation like move, copy, or delete, must consider both the "data fork" and "resource fork", as well as the database entry instead of just a single file.
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Admin user interface is restored from last session
Information on which windows are open (and on their positions and sizes) is stored in the EtherShare Admin preferences file. This allows you to arrange windows according to your individual taste, and have the arrangement retained between sessions.
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Software version control
The HELIOS product line consists of more than one hundred files containing libraries, applications, server daemons, etc. Each file has a unique name, with its own version number. For maintenance, the versions of each module can be verified in the EtherShare Admin "Versions" window. This makes it easy to report individual server configurations.
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