Why does not shared disks show up for guest users?

Question

Level 1

21 points

Why does not shared disks show up for guest users?

I have set up my Airport Extreme with a guest wireless network option. When connecting a disk to the Airport it only shows up for the main wireless network users. I have enabled filesharing, and chosen "Read and write" for the "Disk Guest Access".
When I change from main wireless to the guest network the disk just disappears from my Finder window and the router is no longer showing up as “Shared” in the Finder side panel.

I have firmware 7.5.2 installed on the Airport router.

Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 6, 2011 7:37 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 6, 2011 2:43 PM in response to Signe Maten

Signe Maten wrote:
I have set up my Airport Extreme with a guest wireless network option. When connecting a disk to the Airport it only shows up for the main wireless network users.

The whole point of a guest network is to enable Internet access without giving a user access to the rest of the LAN, including other clients, printers, and disks. What benefit were you expecting a guest network to give you?

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Answer 2

Signe Maten Author

Level 1

21 points

Apr 7, 2011 3:00 AM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

William Boyd, Jr. wrote:
The whole point of a guest network is to enable Internet access without giving a user access to the rest of the LAN, including other clients, printers, and disks. What benefit were you expecting a guest network to give you?

I don´t want to discuss ICT admin. guidelines and politics here, I just want a service to work as advertised. Any suggestions for getting a guest network disk to work would be appreciated.

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Answer 3

Apr 7, 2011 7:36 AM in response to Signe Maten

The service is working as advertised. The guest network is isolating guests from the rest of your network.

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Answer 4

Signe Maten Author

Level 1

21 points

Apr 7, 2011 7:51 AM in response to John.Kitzmiller

OK. But the disk is only showing up in the main network, despite it has been chosen to be shared as read/write on “AirPort Guest Access” under the File Sharing tab in the AirPort Utility.

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Answer 5

Apr 7, 2011 7:56 AM in response to Signe Maten

This is expected behavior.

In this case, AirPort Guest Access refers to anyone who has access to your main network that does not have a password to access your disk.

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Answer 6

Signe Maten Author

Level 1

21 points

Apr 8, 2011 1:43 PM in response to John.Kitzmiller

OK. That explains it. I use an AP Express as a repeater on the guest network. Is it possible to get the disk shared through the Express' USB port?

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Answer 7

Apr 11, 2011 1:01 PM in response to Signe Maten

Unfortunately no. The USB port on the AirPort Express is only for printer sharing.

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Answer 8

May 16, 2011 5:01 AM in response to John.Kitzmiller

I have this issue, but the other way around. When I connect my MacBook to the guest network that I set up with my AirPort Extreme base station, I can still connect to the two AirPort disks that are hooked up to said base station. How is that even possible? Does this have to do with the fact that I'm still in my own user profile where the access information is probably stored in my Keychain? Because I can't access those same disks when I temporarily log into the guest account on this same computer.

What I want to achieve is for computers connected to the guest network not to even see the possibility to connect to my AirPort Extreme, let alone to the two disks hooked up to that. Is that even possible at all?

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