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TICKET ARCHIVE -> How Do You Tell Who Is Connected to Your Computer

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 11:59 am

In OSX, with personal file sharing turned on, how do you tell who is connected to your computer?

bobw - Apr 28, 2005 - 12:42 pm

Hi Ben

You can do this in the Terminal application (in the Utility folder).

ping' with 255 as the last number in the IP-address range of your network - this is a broadcast ping and should get a response from all machines on that network segment.
Eg. if you have a 192.168.0.XXX network, do:

ping 192.168.0.255

To get just 10 - do this

ping -c 10 192.168.0.255


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Bobw - MacOSX.com Tech Support
bobw@macosx.com

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 12:56 pm

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply. .255 would be the broadcast address if my network segment mask ended in ".0" and the broadcast ping is a nice way to find active IP addresses on the local net, but how do I find out who is currently activly connected, via personal file sharing, to my machine?

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 1:21 pm

As a more accurate and truly general statement, I should have said:

.255 would be the broadcast address if .254 was the last useable address in my network segment.

bobw - Apr 28, 2005 - 2:43 pm

Ben

Sorry, thought you meant on your network.

I don't know a command in Unix for otutside. Try the Network Utility>Netstat in your Utility folder. Not sure if that will show outside connections or not.


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Bobw - MacOSX.com Tech Support
bobw@macosx.com

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 2:56 pm

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply. I will keep hunting and will leave a note here if I turn up anything.

bobw - Apr 28, 2005 - 3:07 pm

Ok, thanks.

I'll keep searching. If I find something, I'll let you know.


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Bobw - MacOSX.com Tech Support
bobw@macosx.com

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 3:15 pm

The only thing that I have been able to find so far is some beta software called "xAFP" available at:

http://www.xeir.com/

From the README, it looks like it monitors the contents of /Library/Logs/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceAccess.log

bobw - Apr 28, 2005 - 3:19 pm

Ben

You can open that log yourself. Just double click on it and Console will open showing the log.


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Bobw - MacOSX.com Tech Support
bobw@macosx.com

magik23 - Apr 28, 2005 - 3:26 pm

AFP logging is not normally turned on. From the readme file:

NOTE: To monitor AFP Shares, the AFP activity log MUST be enabled!!

--- How to enable AppleFileShare log to monitor connections (Requires root privileges)

For Jaguar:

1. Open /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager
2. Login to make changes
3. Choose /config/AppleFileServer
4. Choose the "activity_log" property. Change it from "0" to "1"
5. Choose "Save" from the NetInfo Manager "Domain" menu
6. Stop and restart File Sharing in System Prefs
7. Log file = /Library/Logs/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceAccess.log

For Panther:

1. Open /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer.plist
2. Change activityLog from to
3. Save the file
4. Stop and restart File Sharing in System Prefs
5. Log file = /Library/Logs/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceAccess.log

magik23 - Apr 29, 2005 - 1:26 am

The only thing that I can find that will give you real time info on file sharing connections is open a terminal window and do a

netstat | grep afp

which will show all afp connection IP addresses, both incomming and outgoing.

bobw - Apr 29, 2005 - 8:37 am

Ben

I posted this to our forums. Take a look at this page;

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51888


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Bobw - MacOSX.com Tech Support
bobw@macosx.com