Connecting Mac client to Repository on Windows Server

Deadline
1

I’m having trouble connecting my Mac client/slave to the repository. The repository is hosted on a windows 2008 server box. I can see the server from Finder and connect to the shares on that machine.

When I start the Monitor app and try to connect it doesn’t see any network devices. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Erick P.

2

Hi Erick,

There is a known problem with Mono where the file/folder browsers don’t list network devices. In the file browser, you can use the Back/Up buttons to navigate to them, but unfortunately there isn’t a current workaround for the folder browser. In the 3.1 SP1 release, we’ll have a solution for this, but for now the only option is to type the path in manually. The path would probably look something like /Volumes/DeadlineRepository.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
3

Thanks Ryan. That worked great.

Erick.

4

I too have been experiencing an error like this. I have a repository on a windows machine, and I’ve got deadline running on a mac as a client. When i launch the deadline slave, it gives me an error about the repository, then allows me to change it.

The window says “Select a known repository path or browse for one:” and when i try to browse, my windows machine isn’t listed. I’ve tried several variations to put it in by hand, including the way you guys talked about with no luck what-so-ever.

Any tips? This is really frustrating. :frowning:

5

First, make sure that you’re connected to the remote machine. This can be achieved in Finder by selecting Go -> Connect to Server. If you’re repository share is something like \Server\DeadlineRepository, you’ll want to connect to smb://Server/DeadlineRepository. Once you’re connected, select Go -> Go To Folder and type in \Volumes. This will open the Volumes folder (which is hidden on OSX by default), and you should see DeadlineRepository here. If you see DeadlineRepository, and then DeadlineRepository-1, DeadlineRepository-2, etc, then check out FAQ question 1.11 here:
franticvfx.com/software/supp … ralfaq.php

Now that you’ve confirmed that you’re connected correctly, try entering the path /Volumes/DeadlineRepository in the Repository Browser and you should be good to go. If this still doesn’t work, can you send us the actual error message?

Note that this post uses \Server\DeadlineRepository as an example, so if you’re repository server and/or share name are different, make sure to make the appropriate changes when following the steps above.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
6

Thanks so much, that helped a lot. I have one more question though, and I’m not sure if this thread is an ok place to ask or if I should create a new one, but I’m rendering out some information from XSI on a windows machine, and submitted it to Deadline. Is there a way to get a macintosh node to participate in rendering a job submitted for XSI? I was looking at the plugin preferences from the Deadline Monitor on my mac node, and it lists XSI in there, but the path is to a C:\ drive, and to a .bat file…

7

XSI is only available for Windows and Linux, so you can’t render XSI jobs on Mac. The plugin preferences are actually global preferences, so you’ll see the same settings when viewing them from any machine. That’s why we support semicolon separated lists of paths - so you can setup multiple paths if the rendering software is installed to different locations across different machines (Deadline will use whichever path it finds first). The benefit to the preferences being global is that you only need to set them once from any machine, instead of having to configure each machine individually.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
8

Awesome. Thanks again. I’ll install a bootcamp partition for the mac nodes to participate when needed. :slight_smile: Awesome software by the way!