Configure a Netatalk File Server in Linux Based on Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) [Ubuntu Guide]

By Sam Davis on Apr 29, 2008 filed under Guides, Linux, Ubuntu | Comments

Netatalk

Apple computers communicate with one another using the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). Using the freely-available implementation of this protocol called Netatalk, Ubuntu (currently Hardy Heron 8.04) can interface with Mac OS X (currently Leopard 10.5.2) and you can set up a AppleShare file server on a Ubuntu machine that is accessible to Macs on your local area network (LAN). The following guide will get you started.

To install Netatalk you have two options. Both are outlined below, but I recommend the second method for security reasons.

Installation Option One - Clear Text Passwords

Netatalk can be installed from the Ubuntu package repositories by simply using the aptitude package management program. To do so, execute the following commands in the terminal. (This may require that the Ubuntu install disk is in the CD drive.)

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install netatalk

Unfortunately, this pre-compiled package only allows the use of clear text passwords (instead of encrypted passwords) due to legal reasons. This is fine for the purposes of file sharing on a LAN behind a firewall. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, clear text passwords may only be 8 or fewer characters in length and, thus, all users that intend to login in to and use the Netatalk AppleShare file server must have such a password. Second, if you are using OS X 10.5 (Leopard), clear text passwords are not permitted by default. However, it is easy to enable clear text passwords by executing the following command in a terminal on your Mac. (Note: Due to the page width, the command is wrapped below. But, it should be typed all on one line.)

defaults write com.apple.AppleShareClient afp_cleartext_allow -bool true

Installation Option Two - Encrypted Passwords

In order to install Netatalk so that it works natively with OS X Leopard-that is, allows encrypted passwords-the program must be recompiled using the appropriate SSL libraries. First we need to install some developer packages, which may require that the Ubuntu install disk be in the CD drive. At the command prompt type:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install devscripts dpkg-dev

Next, install some password checker and SSL libraries.

sudo aptitude install cracklib2-dev libssl-dev

Make a directory to hold the Netatalk source code, move to it, and download the code.

mkdir netatalk
cd netatalk
apt-get source netatalk

Now, move to the source code directory (the version number may change), switch to the root user, resolve and install the build dependencies for Netatalk, and build with the SSL option enabled (I’ve included several build options to suppress some error messages that arise because the build is not signed). The last commands below install the build and exit the root user.

cd netatalk-2.0.3
sudo su
apt-get build-dep netatalk
DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=ssl debuild -i -us -uc -b
debi
exit

Finishing Up

If you used installation method two above (the custom build) then execute the following command to finish up. This command suppress updates of your custom Netatalk build. The program will break if Ubuntu tries to update it.

echo "netatalk hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

That’s it. Now you can connect to the Ubuntu AFP server by using Go > Connect to Server... in Finder on your Mac and entering your Ubuntu user name and password. By default your home directory on the Ubuntu machine will be served. To serve other directories you will have to modify the /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default file. This file is well commented to guide you. One thing I wanted to do was to have a shared directory where anyone using my LAN could drop or retrieve files. The easiest way to do this (in order to get all the permissions correct) is to simply create a shared user on the Ubuntu machine in whose home directory shared content can be stored.

Congratulations, now your Ubuntu machine can serve files to Macs running OS X on the LAN. But it would be nice if your new Ubuntu Apple File Server broadcast its presence on the network and showed up in Finder on your Macs. This can be done using a program called Avahi which discovers and broadcasts services just like Bonjour. I show you how to install and configure Avahi in this post.

This post is one of five in a series on how to integrate Ubuntu into a Mac OS X Network. Check out the others linked to below.
Ubuntu Guide: Configure a Netatalk File Server Based on Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)
Ubuntu Guide: Configure Avahi to Broadcast Services via Bonjour to Mac OS X
Ubuntu Guide: Configure Vinagre to Share the Screen with Mac OS X
Ubuntu Guide: Configure a Firefly (mt-daapd) Streaming Media Server for iTunes and Front Row
Ubuntu Guide: Configure Netatalk to Share a USB Printerr

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What Now?

Viewing 16 Comments

stromsky 9 months ago 1 point
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Great work, Thanks a lot !
worked here with Ubuntu 9.0.4 and Mac OS X 10.6.1

Have been working with netatalk before to get a connection from the Ubuntu-box to my old PowerPC running OS 8.6.

Therefore some old .AppleDB directories were laying around here (in my home directory)
When i tried your first tutorial concerning a connection from the Mac-Box to the Ubuntu-box,
i could not get into it, when trying "Connect as: ... from the finder"
Was always thrown back, coz i was using a wrong password or
else something was not working with my server (so the text in the box after trying to
connect within the Finder)

These are some of the console msgs (on the Mac):

20.09.09 21:16:09 kernel ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 7 error 89 reqID 8 flags 0x9 afpCmd 0x14 so 0x9617330
20.09.09 21:16:09 kernel ASP_TCP do_thread_read: no reqInfo found for reqID 1
20.09.09 21:16:44 kernel ASP_TCP do_thread_read: no reqInfo found for reqID 1
20.09.09 21:16:49 /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/NetAuthAgent[8431] AFP error -5014 mapped to EIO
20.09.09 21:16:49 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder[7870] SharePointBrowser::handleEnumerateCallBack returned 5
20.09.09 21:16:50 kernel ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 7 error 89 reqID 8 flags 0x9 afpCmd 0x14 so 0x9f8b330
20.09.09 21:16:50 kernel ASP_TCP do_thread_read: no reqInfo found for reqID 1
20.09.09 21:17:02 /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/NetAuthAgent[8431] *** process 8431 exceeded 500 log message per second limit - remaining messages this second discarded ***

not very useful, eh ? At least to me and the majority of the pages watched typically by google.

but, on the Linux-Box there were in the daemon.log some useful information:

Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: login xxxx (uid xxxxx, gid xxxx) AFP3.1
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: Setting uid/gid to xxxx/xxxx
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: CNID DB initialized using Sleepycat Software: Berkeley DB 4.2.52: (December 3, 2003)
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: cnid_open: dbenv->open (rw) of /home/xxxxxx/.AppleDB failed: Invalid argument
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: cnid_open: dbenv->open of /home/xxxxxx/.AppleDB failed: Invalid argument
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: Cannot open CNID db at [/home/xxxxxx].
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: Fatal error: cannot open CNID or invalid CNID backend for /home/xxxxxx: cdb
Sep 20 21:16:49 ubuntu afpd[9309]: logout xxxxxxx

Deleting the directory .AppleDB/
and restarting netatalk service (sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk restart)
did it.

Thanks again for your grateful sharing of your excellent knowledge !

Best greetings,
Stefan

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Jaime 1 year ago 1 point
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Hello Sam,
it´s an interesting guide you have here. Nonetheless my problem lies in the fact that i need to integrate
some WinXP machines to the Ubuntu server as well as the Mac OS X. Apparently Netatalk doesn´t serve for this purpose, right?
The network had been working fine before we updated the OS X to Leopard. Since then neither can i connect to the Ubuntu folders from
the Mac nor use Time Machine.
Do you have any hint?

Best Regards,
Jaime

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Jason 1 year ago 1 point
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Awesome guide, You just made having my two machines like one.
Perfect.
One thing i had to change to get it to work was
cd netatlk-2.0.3 - cd netatalk-2.0.4~beta2, other than that no porbs at all using ubuntu 9.04 and os 10.5.7

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benhinc 1 year ago 1 point
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Thanks for the guide. It worked great under 8.10 but now that I've upgraded to 9.04 I get the following error when I try to connect from OS X:

http://img.skitch.com/20090425-fd9f7x42xjunw1rx...

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stromsky 9 months ago 1 point
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Experienced some similarily issue.
Worked beforehand with netatalk, when i read these fine pages.
Put a new netatalk (like shown in the how-to) and got it working.

But was thrown back, when tried to connect.

Deleting the .AppleDB/ directory in my home directory at the Ubuntu-Box
did the job.

Greetings,
Stefan

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benhinc 1 year ago 1 point
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Thanks for this great guide. It worked fine under 8.10 but I recently upgraded to 9.04 and the following happens when I try to access the share from OS X:

http://img.skitch.com/20090425-fd9f7x42xjunw1rx...

Any suggestions?

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dreamspy 10 months ago 1 point
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Could be something wrong with the .AppleD* directories in the directory you are trying to mount. Try removing them from the directory and try to mount. Backing them up might be wice, but don't really think you need to do that. Netatalk creates these directories for you automatically. Hope this helps

In reply to:
Thanks for this great guide. It worked fine under 8.10 but I recently upgraded to 9.04 and the following happens when I try to access the share from OS X:

http://img.skitch.com/20090425-fd9f7x42xjunw1rx...

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dreamspy 10 months ago 1 point
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most likely you have to remove the .AppleD* directories in the directory you are trying to mount. Don't worry though, netatalk should recreate them as soon as you try to connect to the share. You can also backup those directories to be safe. I had the same problem, and this helped me.

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Rinse 1 year ago 1 point
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Very good, thanks! Just where i was looking for!

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bcl 1 year ago 1 point
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Great howto! Thanks for the excellent work.

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http://www.brianlane.com

0chiehchen 1 year ago 1 point
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If you are running VMware, you will probably run into problem starting netatalk daemon with this error message: "nbp_rgstr: Connection timedout". I found this solution on the web to solve this problem:
http://archives.devshed.com/forums/networking-1...

Basically, you will have to add "eth0" (without quotes) at the end of /etc/netatalk/atalkd.conf fiile.

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0chiehchen 1 year ago 1 point
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If you are running VMware, you will probably run into problem starting netatalk daemon with error message: "nbp_rgstr: Connection timedout". Here is what I found on the web to solve this problem:
http://archives.devshed.com/forums/networking-1...

Basically, you will have to add "etho" (without quotes) at the end of /etc/netatalk/atalkd.conf file.

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RupertGee 1 year ago 1 point
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I just want to thank you for such a well written and detailed guide. I'm a long-time Mac OS X user and using Ubuntu in Parallels Desktop. I just may set up a stand-alone PC to run Ubuntu once I'm sure it can be integrated into my Mac network, and thanks to you, the day may come pretty soon.

Keep up the good work.

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Sam 2 years ago 1 point
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@Benedict - If you are using ethernet cables to connect either machine to the router and the router supports 100BASE-T (100 Mb/s) speeds, make sure that the cables you are using support 100BASE-T. If you are using 10BASE-T cables the maximum realized speed will be about 1 Mb/s. If you are using a wireless network, try running a hard line (i.e. ethernet) connection between your Mac and the Ubuntu machine through your router. Copy a largish file and see how fast the transfer is. This will probably be the highest speed you can expect with your router and the network interface cards your hardware is equipped with (assuming you are using appropriate cables as mentioned above). If this is about the same as the speed you are getting via wireless then there probably isn't much you can do. If it is much faster then try fiddling with your router configuration. If you can figure out what port is being used to transfer data between machines, try opening this port on your router for LAN traffic.

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http://www.zaphu.com

Benedict 2 years ago 1 point
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These guides are excellent, thank you!

I'm having some performance issues. It takes around 20 minutes to copy a 100MB file. Can you offer some advice on how I can fix this?

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Ramie 2 years ago 1 point
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Hiya!!

Thanks for the guide!
I've encountered some problems when debuild'ing but the links provided below helped resolved them. I used v.2.0.3-9 to debuild to resolve my problem.

Here are some additional info:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=347019
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netatalk/

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Trackbacks

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