Re: Linux as fileserver


Subject: Re: Linux as fileserver
From: Olivier van Helden (magic@samarkande.net)
Date: Wed Aug 16 2000 - 19:31:42 MDT


Howard,

>Does netatalk work without working over IP for you?
>
>I have it working over IP, but I can't get the linux machine to show up in
>the choosers of macs (in other works, native appletalk and nbp).

Yes, but I had to do some changes to get it working.

Actually, my YellowDog machine appeared correctly without changes on
the AppleShare network, but not my Pentium RedHat Linux boxes. I
first thought it was due to the presence of two Ethernet cards on all
my Pentiums (but I didn't verify this, til now).

Anyway, I found a solution, and maybe other members of this mailing
list could say if it is safe:

I noticed these details:
- even when netatalk services are started at boot, and working fine
over IP, the appletalk doesnt seem to be loaded when you type 'lsmod'
or '/etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk status'
(The atalk service is started by /etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk)
- If you try to stop it, it stops actually, but you also get an error
message (something like "impossible to unregister"
- if you try to use the appletalk utils like nbplkup, you also get an error
- in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk script, there is a command to remove
the module when asked to shut down atalk service, but no command to
load it when opening the service

So I first tried this:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk stop
        (to stop the daemon started at boot)
insmod appletalk
        (to load the module)
/etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk start
        (to restart the service after the module is loaded)
And... my server appeared in the Mac's chooser!
I even put a "mac-friendly" name to my server in /etc/atalk/afpd.conf
and it worked fine.

So, to be sure to have it restarting this way after reboot, I added
the insmod command in /etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk, before the backgrounded
startup test, so it gives something like that:
(...)
     case "$1" in
     start)
         echo -n "Starting AppleTalk services: "
         insmod appletalk
         if [ ${ATALK_BGROUND} = yes ] ; then
             echo -n "(backgrounded)"
(...)

That's all I made, and i got it working fine.
I only had a few issues with previously created aliases on the Macs,
but I suppose it's due to the fact the aliases where made when
accessing the mounted disk via an IP address and not the Appletalk
declared address.

I make NO GUARANTEE that it is a good procedure, and if anybody could
give me some comments/suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.

> > I use a Linux file server in mixed environment, with both Appletalk
>> and Samba. Actually, your question is also valid in the other
>> direction: what about the files you save from a Mac (without dotted
>> extension) and you try to read from a pc? In any case, the files
>> saved in one environment wouldn't be recognized by the others without
>> a minimal amount of rules...
>>
>> Apart of this, the Appletalk server (aka netatalk) works pretty fine,
>> and does respect the resource fork of MacOs files. I can put on the
>> server things like PhotoShop files, installers, applications without
>> problem.
>>
>> More than this, netatalk also passes file/creator information, based
>> on the extensions when the file doesn't come from a MacOs station.



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