AFP Volume Name Not Being Exported And Displayed As ServerName.VolumeName Or The Alias Name

While viewing the volumes after connecting a MAC client to and OES 2 SP 2 server running AFP services, the volume names are not showing up correctly as specified under the afpvols.conf.  The format for that file is as follows:

ServerName.VolumeName   AliasName

 

As an example, the hostname of a server is Instructional-I.  The volume name is "Instructional."  The afpvols.conf would contain an entry as follows:

Instructional-I.Instructional    myAlias

OR

Instructional-I.Instructional    Instructional-I.myAlias

 

After restarting AFP and reconnecting with the server, the volume shows up as INSTRUCTIONAL instead of myAlias, or Instructional-I.myAlias. 

The reason this occurs is because of a limitation specific to AFP.  The volume name length (when added to the server name) can be a maximum of 27 characters (this does not apply to the alias name).  In this case, Instructional-I.Instructional is over the 27 character limit.  The only way around this is to rename the volume or server name.  It is probably easier to rename the volume (not covered in this TID). 

 

In this case, if the volume Instructional were renamed to Instruct, then the ServerName.VolumeName would be under the 27 character limit, and the alias would show up correctly for the exported volume name (even if the alias is over the 27 character limit).