Whenever a Macintosh client modifies a file on the Apple Workgroup Server (AWS) 95 the file's UNIX privileges are set to "root". This means that any NFS user not logged in as root will not be able to use the file. Is there a way that we can force the AppleShare Pro to leave the privileges alone?

The privileges are not set exactly as you have explained. The UNIX privileges are set up as follows:

directories: drwxr_xr_x

files: _rw_r__r__

The owner is root and the group is root.

This does not allow other UNIX based users to write to these files but it does allow them to open and view the directories and files. The NFS based user would then be able to save a modified copy to any directory to which they have write privileges.

The good news is there is an easy way to modify the way AppleShare Pro sets the UNIX permissions. By modifying the value of the umask you can set up the privileges to a more suitable mode. Since the root account starts a Bourne shell (sh) by default you can modify the umask value in the /.profile file. If you changed the root account to start the C-Shell (csh) you could modify the value of the umask in the /.login file. The umask is an octal value used as a mask to set file privileges when certain system calls (creat(), mknod(), and open()) are made by a user process.

The umask value controls which bits are used to set the privileges when directories and files are created. A value of 000 would not mask any bits resulting in a file/dir creation with privileges set to 777 (rwxrwxrwx). You need to set this value in the .profile or .login files to the appropriate value for the environment, quit AppleShare (if running), and logout. Login and start the AppleShare server and the new creation privileges will now be exported to the AppleShare application environment.