You missed a really good one!

In finder, simply drag the server/folder/whatever icon to finder's toolbar. It creates a shortcut that works as a standard toolbar button.

Don't forget sshfs / MacFUSE.

I know this falls under alias but I find it much more palatable to have a couple of servers in the Finder sidebar than in the Dock or on the Desktop. Most of the time you need access to a server is when you are in the Finder (or in a open dialogue which also shows the Finder sidebar).
There is one caveat though, you cannot drag a server (or a server share) into the sidebar, only folders from that share. Thus, just drag a commonly used top-level folder into the sidebar instead.

Actually, you can drag a share to the top of the sidebar with the other volumes, but it's only visible when the share is mounted via another method (see this hint). I have 9 different shares that only show up when they are mounted (in my case, via an alias in a folder on the dock) and have a nice little eject icon next to each of them.

Just wondering: is there an advantage of #5 over #2? I thought having an alias to the server should do the same, but wasn't too sure. Would be great if someone knew & posted - thanks!

Doesn't #5 save the password for you (although if #2 will save it in the keychain that will be better because it will be encrypted)?

#5 is better when distributing the bookmarks to different clients (if the passwords for the serveraccess are the same, of course).
Although I'm not a big fan of this "black box" aliases that may break from time to time (had that some times in my company. Maybe because of some changes at the server or client) - in the bookmarks all connection info is readable and editable when dragging the bookmark to a text document.

mount volume "afp://user@machine._afpovertcp._tcp.local/share"

You can also use the Automator and the "Connect to Servers" action.

I hadn't know about bookmarks (#5). I just set up a bunch of shares using that method and I really like it. I didn't have to specify the username and password because they were already in my keychain.

One problem I've found with all these methods is that when you show "Connected servers" on your desktop, the name is always the share name. I have 8 WinXP machines that were all set up by the vendor with the same share name (different IP addresses). It would be great if I could control the name that gets displayed on the desktop.

mount -t smbfs //username:password@server/path ~/Desktop/mount_point

#3 The dialog box way also allows you to use "vnc://..." to establish remote screen sharing connections.

Another protocol you could use in Cmd-K dialogue or as a bookmark is vnc: for connecting via Screen Sharing. And another is ssh: which opens Terminal. I guess there's more...

If we are talking about just connecting to another server, the most common method on a Unix system is to ssh to it. As far as mounting a remote server to use locally, wouldn't the standard Unix method be to use NFS and not smb or afp?

Disk Utility->File->NFS Mounts...

1. Sept 2009
2. Dec 2007

• Automatically connect to the server upon login without a Finder window appearing (as happens with System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items), and without using a third party program
• Check server connection when iTunes is started, and connect if necessary
• Check and connect every few minutes while iTunes is running

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.barrytshaw.ConnectToNAS</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Users/Shared/ConnectToNASlaunchd.sh</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
	<key>WatchPaths</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Users/barry/Music/iTunes Library Extras.itdb</string>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

Save in ~/Library/LaunchAgents if specific to a user or /Library/LaunchAgents to run for all users. This 'agent' runs when someone logs in and when the /Users/barry/Music/iTunes Library Extras.itdb is modified - which generally only happens when iTunes starts up. It doesn't seem possible to monitor the main iTunes Library database, perhaps because of its lack of filename. The agent expects to run a shell script /Users/Shared/ConnectToNASlaunchd.sh; this will actually do the connecting and will be written later.

One further launchd agent can be created to run every few minutes. In the example below, it runs a script called /Users/Shared/ConnectToNASifITunesRunning.sh every 60 seconds:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.barrytshaw.ConnectToNASiTunesCheck</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Users/Shared/ConnectToNASifITunesRunning.sh</string>
	</array>
	<key>StartInterval</key>
	<integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Now, to create the scripts. ConnectToNASlaunchd.sh does the connecting to the server. In this example, it actually mounts two sharepoints with SMB. It also contains commands for AFP connections, commented out.

#!/bin/bash

# Program to connect to two sharepoints on a remote server.
# Make sure this script is executable by root.

# Problems: password is hard-coded into this script. No access should
# be given to this script except to admins and root.

PROGNAME="Connect to NAS (barry)"

# IP address or name of server
IP="192.168.0.10"

USERNAME="`whoami`"  # Use "`whoami`" if OS X short username is same as username on server.
PWD="thing"

# No. of secs to stop checking for the IP address
# Give time for server to awake from sleep.
TIMEOUT=10

# First connection: where to mount locally
VOL1="/Volumes/DS Shared"

# First connection: name of remote sharepoint, with spaces converted to %20 etc.
# To see which special characters need converting, connect with Finder's Go > Connect to Server
# and once connected, do Get Info on the server to see the name.
SHARE1="DS%20Shared"

# Second connections
VOL2="/Volumes/web"
SHARE2="web"


# =======================================================================

# Check server actually exists before trying to connect
/sbin/ping -c 1 -t $TIMEOUT $IP &>/dev/null
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
	syslog -s -l Error "$PROGNAME: Cannot connect to server $IP"
	exit
else
	if [ -d "$VOL1" ]; then
		syslog -s -l Error "$PROGNAME: $VOL1 already exists. Not trying to mount it."
	else
		mkdir "$VOL1"
		chown $USERNAME "$VOL1"
		chmod 777 "$VOL1"
		syslog -s -l Warning "$PROGNAME: Connecting to NAS for $VOL1"

		# Fortunately sudo isn't required, because it logs commands (incl. the password) in the Console.
		#/sbin/mount -t afp -a -o nodev,nosuid "afp://$USERNAME:$PWD@$IP/$SHARE1" "$VOL1"
		/sbin/mount -t smbfs -o noatime,nodev,nosuid,-d=0777,-f=0777 "//$USERNAME:$PWD@$IP/$SHARE1" "$VOL1"
	fi
	
	if [ -d "$VOL2" ]; then
		syslog -s -l Error "$PROGNAME: $VOL2 already exists. Not trying to mount it."
	else
		mkdir "$VOL2"
		chown $USERNAME "$VOL2"
		chmod 777 "$VOL2"
		syslog -s -l Warning "$PROGNAME: Connecting to NAS for $VOL2"

		#/sbin/mount -t afp -a -o nodev,nosuid "afp://$USERNAME:$PWD@$IP/$SHARE2" "$VOL2"
		/sbin/mount -t smbfs -o noatime,nodev,nosuid,-d=0777,-f=0777 "//$USERNAME:$PWD@$IP/$SHARE2" "$VOL2"
	fi	
	
fi

The final script is the one that runs every few minutes, ConnectToNASifITunesRunning.sh. It checks to see if iTunes is running, and if so runs the other connect script. If iTunes is not running it does nothing, meaning that the server doesn't get woken up from sleep unnecessarily.

#!/bin/sh

# See if iTunes is running. If so, check the server is connected and connect if needed.
# Could be run every few mins from launchd.

# Assumes that iTunes is called iTunes, but doesn't have to be in the Applications folder.
# Can't just search for 'iTunes' in the process list, because 'iTunesHelper' is always running.
ITUNES_PROCESS_COUNT=`ps -A -o comm | grep --count "iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes"`

if [ $ITUNES_PROCESS_COUNT -gt 0 ]; then
   `dirname $0`/ConnectToNASlaunchd.sh
fi

I made these scripts accessible only to root with chmod 700 ConnectToNASifITunesRunning.sh etc.

NB In addition, I made the ~/Music/iTunes Media/Music folder an alias to the actual location of the music and locked it. iTunes has an annoying habit of defaulting back to this location if the proper location isn’t available.

dscl localhost -ls /Search/NFS

I've diddled with many of these methods to reliably connect to the 4 volumes I have on my Synology NAS (Time Machine, Photos, Documents, Video, & Music). I finally settled on an automator app that I launch at startup because it seems the most flexible. One thing I'm still trying to figure out, though is how to place an automator action sequence that tests for the availability of the volumes and exits the app if they are not available. (e.g. I am away from home). Any ideas?

Is there a way to test a path on a Mac? If I paste the path in a PC window, and click return, it takes me to that folder!
It does not work on a Mac, even if:
I change the direction of the slashes..
I paste it into Connect to Server...

I'm writting some code, the path is part of that code; I'd like to verify the path is correctly written. Any ideas?