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Setting up Remote Shared Drive Access if you have a Macintosh computer in your office

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2.0 - Updated on 2024-06-01 by Theodore Mak

1.0 - Authored on 2020-03-13 by Eric Fong

These are the steps to take while you are in the office, prior to attempting to connect remotely to shared drives.


Find the shared drive(s) icons(s).  Highlight it and click File - Get Info or click Command - I.

That will show you the path information for the shared drive.  It will look like this:



Copy the Server: information.   You will need this later.

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On your personal computer, run the Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect VPN application.  If you do not have it, you can get it here:

https://vpn.berkeley.edu/global-protect/getsoftwarepage.esp

Information about the VPN software: https://software.berkeley.edu/bsecure-remote-access-vpn

Download the appropriate version of the software and install it.  When it is installed. run the application and sign-in with your CalNet ID and passphrase.

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For Windows machines:

Open This PC/My Computer
At the top, select Computer and click Map network drive


It will bring up a window and you will enter the file path where it says Folder.


At Folder, type in the path starting with \\...

When you are done, click Finish and the shared drive(s) should appear in the File Explorer.

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Connecting your Shared Drive to your Mac:

Original Source:  https://osxdaily.com/2010/09/20/map-a-network-drive-on-a-mac/

  1. From the Mac OS X Finder, hit Command+K to bring up the ‘Connect to Server’ window
  2. Enter the path to the network drive you want to map, ie: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click ‘Connect’
  3. Enter your login/password and click “OK” to mount the network drive
  4. The drive will now appear on your desktop and in the Finder window sidebar


NOTE:  When entering the path, please note that the forward slash characters ("/") are used in place of the back-slash characters ("\") used in Windows Dos.  In addition, you must type "smb" to start the path.


When this is connected, click the plus (+) symbol to add it to your Favorite Servers so you don't have to type the path again.  This is done as when you disconnect from the VPN, the shared drives will disappear and will not automatically mount on your computer until you click Connect again.

A great additional step for either method is to create an alias of the mapped network drive. This allows you to reconnect to the share with just a click. Here’s how to do this:

Now you can double-click that alias to reconnect to the network drive instantly.