Mac Machine Administration

by László L. Lieszkovszky

A collection of articels and snippets about administering Macs.

Permanently Map a Network Drive on Mac

From: 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, select “Remember this password in my keychain”, and click “OK” to mount the network drive. *Some shares will not work with the keychain though.
  4. Select the newly added folder, then choose File  Add To Sidebar.

The drive is now mounted, but continue on to map for system reboot persistence

  1. Now enter into System Preferences, from the Apple menu
  2. Click on ‘Accounts’
  3. Click on “Login Items”
  4. Just drag the share from your desktop or Finder window into the Login Items list.
    OR
    Click on the + button to add another login item
    Locate the network drive you previously mounted and click “Add”
  5. To solve the issue of a Finder window showing the network drive each time you log in, you can check the Hide box in the Login Items list.
The downside, which I've not yet been able to resolve, is that it will open a Finder window for that share every time you log on. I have a few shares configured this way for our Windows Home Server (Music, Videos, Photos, etc)... and every time I log in, I get multiple Finder windows - one for each share. The Hide checkbox appears to affect Applications opened at login, but doesn't seem to change whether or not the Finder window is opened for a mapped volume
https://superuser.com/questions/130787/permanently-map-a-network-drive-on-mac-os-x-leopard
Another option:
You may want to look at macmounter, an open source, python project that automatically mounts drives, and keeps them mounted: https://github.com/roubles/macmounter

How to Make the Mapped Network Drive Visible on the Mac Desktop

It’s possible that the mounted drive will not appear on the desktop due to a system setting. If you want the mapped drive icon to be visible on the Desktop, be sure to do the following additional steps:
From the Finder, open Finder Preferences by hitting Command+,
Click the General tab
Select the checkbox next to ‘Connected Servers’
Close Finder Preferences
Selecting the checkbox next to Connected Servers ensures that you’ll see the icon on your Mac Desktop, otherwise it will only be visible in the Finder window sidebars and Open/Save dialogues.
https://osxdaily.com/2010/09/20/map-a-network-drive-on-a-mac/

Remount a mapped network drive with a click in OS X

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:
Right-click on the mapped network drive on the Mac OS desktop
Select “Make Alias”
Now you can double-click that alias to reconnect to the network drive instantly.
https://osxdaily.com/2010/09/20/map-a-network-drive-on-a-mac/