Re: ProDOS, OS X and Netatalk

[Hugh Hood <hughhood@earthlink.net>]

Well,

I finally spent some 'spare time' over a couple of weekends installing
Netatalk (via Macports) on an external hard drive connected to one of my OS
X 10.4.11 / Tiger Macs, in the hope that it could become a file sharing
server solution for several Apple IIGS machines.

A little background..............

As most of you know, the Apple II machines (the IIGS and IIe with
Workstation Card) use the legacy 'AppleTalk' protocol, and more specifically
the AFP 2.1 specification. And, Netatalk, at least when running on _some_
platforms, will serve files to clients using this protocol and spec.

Added to that is that Mac OS X (up through OS X 10.5 / Leopard) still
supports the basal DDP protocol that is at the core of Appletalk, and that
makes it possible for pre Snow Leopard machines to speak to Appletalk-only
printers via PAP (printer access protocol), as well as broadcast / discover
via NBP (Appletalk name binding protocol) to Appletalk-speaking printers and
clients connected to an Appletalk-capable network.

In the case of my particular Apple IIGS connection, that Appletalk network
connection is via 'Ethertalk', using a Farallon iPrint adapter, which
appears to do its job of converting AppleTalk over LocalTalk (IIGS) into
AppleTalk over Ethernet (Mac) well.

In fact, using the 'atlookup' command from the OS X Terminal reports the
following for an iPrint-connected AppleIIGS:

     Some-Mugs-PowerMac-G3:~ somemug$ atlookup
     
     Found 3 entries in zone *
     ffaa.ac.80      Some Mug's Power Mac G3:Darwin
     ff00.52.80      Silentwriter 95:LaserWriter
     ff00.14.81      guest:Apple IIgs



Sadly, as most of you know, Apple's own 'AppleFileServer' provided as the
core of the Mac OS X 'Personal File Sharing' capability does a
unsatisfactory job of serving files to an Apple II. In OS X versions 10.1 -
10.5, the Apple IIGS AppleShare Control Panel will 'see' the Mac as a
'Server' thanks to NBP support, and in OS X versions 10.1 - 10.3, the IIGS
will actually connect to the Mac as a 'Client'. Unfortunately, even when a
successful 'Client' hookup is established, the file sharing is essentially
'read only', as any attempted 'write' operations from the Apple IIGS to the
Mac produce an error message, which I _suspect_ results from a small change
in the AFP specification between version 2.1 and 2.2 that affected ProDOS
writes.

And, of course, as of OS X 10.4 / Tiger, the Mac _only_ supports AFP over
TCP/IP, and AppleTalk only machines (e.g. Apple IIGS with AppleShare Control
Panel) need not apply.

Anyway, enough background .................

Boys, I'm afraid I've fallen on my face on getting something to work for us.

Yes, Netatalk does compile and run on a Mac running OS X.

The 'gotcha' is this:

Even if your flavor of Mac OS X supports DDP (all pre 10.6 / Snow Leopard
systems), the Netatalk afpd (Apple File Protocol Daemon), when running on
Mac OS X, will _not_ serve files using the AppleTalk protocol. It will only
serve files using TCP/IP.

And it doesn't seem to matter how you build Netatalk or how you later set
the parameters in the various configuration files either.

So, my conclusion is that if you expect Netatalk to serve files to an Apple
IIGS (or IIe with Workstation Card), you'll need to build it and run it on
something _other_ than OS X. (e.g. - a Linux box).

If any of you fellas has any pull or stroke with the smart boys who do the
Netatalk development work, maybe you can ring some bells and get them to
change this - specifically, to add AFP over _AppleTalk_ support to OS X
builds of Netatalk.

That would be swell, at least by me. Heck, I'd send a $100.00 Amazon gift
card to the clever guy who made it all work. Really.

Hugh Hood





in article C75116FC.EFDD%hughhood@earthlink.net, Hugh Hood at
hughhood@earthlink.net wrote on 12/18/09 11:24 AM:

> Fellas,
> 
> I've been toying with installing Netatalk on an OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) Machine
> to serve as a file server for several of my Apple IIGS machines.
> 
> Netatalk (2.0.5) is available from Macports, so installation shouldn't be
> too bad.
> 
> Netatalk  will handle the AFP 2.2 that the IIGS uses. Moreover, thanks to
> Steven Hirsch's efforts, Netatalk supports ProDOS and Apple II clients.
> 
> I'll hook this up with a Farallon Localtalk to Ethertalk device and give it
> a go. 
> 
> I had done this same thing a couple of years ago on an OS X 10.3 (Panther)
> setup using OS X's built-in AppleTalk file sharing, but ran into the same
> issue as Roger Johnstone (and others) reported many years ago in this
> newsgroup, that being:
> 
> 
>> The bigger problem is that Apple 'repurposed' a flag originally used for
>> storing ProDOS files on a Mac volume. As a result while the IIGS can
>> read files fine from the Mac it can't write any files to it. [without
>>  receiving an error message, that is]
> 
> 
> My question: 
> 
> Has anyone here used Netatalk on an OS X machine and sucessfully written
> files from the IIGS to the Mac? Also, are file attributes (Type/Creator)
> preserved?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> If no one has done this, I suppose I'll give it a try in the next month or
> so and report back.
> 
> I know the Linux guys report Netatalk works great with the IIGS, but what
> obout you OS X guys?
> 
> Hugh Hood
>