Netatalk, Free and Open Source File Server
Netatalk is a Free and Open Source file server that uses the AFP protocol. The Netatalk software runs on a UNIX-like operating system (such as Linux, *BSD or macOS) and allows any computer with an AFP client to easily connect with each other and share files on a local network or over the Internet.
The Netatalk file server software is light-weight, performant, and portable. Conforming to the Apple Filing Protocol specification, any macOS, Mac OS X, or Classic Mac OS system can connect to a Netatalk file server out of the box.
Since its launch in 1990, Netatalk has been leveraged by universities, enterprises, and home users for collaboration and remote data backup on Macs. With Netatalk, any UNIX-like host is able to integrate seamlessly with networked macOS systems, act as centralized file storage, and provide data backup services.
Getting Started
There are three ways to get started with Netatalk: Install a pre-built binary package, deploy a container image, or build the software yourself from source code. Knowledge of basic system administration is required, including installing packages, editing configuration files, and starting/stopping system services.
📦 Install a binary package for your distribution
Use your operating system’s package manager to install the latest available netatalk package. This is the recommended option for most users.
See Repology for a list of known packages.
🐳 Deploy a container image
The project publishes images on Docker Hub and GHCR that can be deployed with a container runtime such as docker or podman.
Refer to the container documentation for details on how to configure the container.
🛠️ Build from source
You want to build from source when neither of the previous options are feasible, or when you want to do a hardened Netatalk deployment with only a subset of features enabled.
See the getting started guide for instructions how to prepare the build environment, and read more about dependencoes in the Netatalk manual.
How to Use
By default, Netatalk shares the home directory of each authorized user, with secure authentication methods compatible with macOS, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS 8.
If you need a different setup, you have to configure the host system before starting Netatalk. Netatalk has a dizzying amount of options which can be daunting initially. The Configuration chapter and afp.conf page in the Netatalk manual are good places to start.
Once Netatalk is up and running, use your AFP client to connect to the file server. This can be the macOS built-in client or 3rd party clients such as afpfs-ng.
Latest News
Netatalk 4.5.0 is available
30th of May 2026
The Netatalk development team is proud to announce the first stable release of the Netatalk 4.5 release series.
All new features in the beta release have been refined and stabilized, notably the new directory caching optimizations with ARC cache, 1M entries, rfork cache, and more.
Support for the SRP (Secure Remote Password) authentication method has been added, which is a modern and secure alternative to DHX2, supported in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion through macOS 26 Tahoe.
The Spotlight search feature has been modularized, overhauled and works out of the box. We now support three different indexing backends: the original LocalSearch backend, a backend that uses Netatalk’s native CNID database (the new default), and a new experimental backend that uses the Xapian search engine library.
The AFP statistics framework has been rewritten from D-Bus to Unix sockets, which is more lightweight and portable.
We have now retired the old macusers utility in favor of afpstats for getting AFP user and session information.
In addition, a wide range of security fixes and hardening has been introduced, including fixes for the following vulnerabilities:
CVE-2026-7835, CVE-2026-7836, CVE-2026-7837, CVE-2026-44053, CVE-2026-44056, CVE-2026-44058, CVE-2026-44059, CVE-2026-44061, CVE-2026-44063, CVE-2026-44065, CVE-2026-44067, CVE-2026-44069, CVE-2026-44070, CVE-2026-44071, CVE-2026-44072, CVE-2026-44073, CVE-2026-44074, CVE-2026-44075, CVE-2026-49387, CVE-2026-49388, CVE-2026-49389, CVE-2026-49390
Netatalk 4.4.3 is available
13th of May 2026
The Netatalk development team is proud to announce a security focused release of the Netatalk 4.4 release series.
In addition to the following security fixes, this release contains a handful of UAM and container hardening improvements.
CVE-2026-44047, CVE-2026-44048, CVE-2026-44049, CVE-2026-44050, CVE-2026-44051, CVE-2026-44052, CVE-2026-44054, CVE-2026-44055, CVE-2026-44057, CVE-2026-44060, CVE-2026-44062, CVE-2026-44064, CVE-2026-44066, CVE-2026-44068, CVE-2026-44076, CVE-2026-45354, CVE-2026-45355, CVE-2026-45356, CVE-2026-45698, CVE-2026-45699
Note that there are another outstanding 18 CVEs that are not fixed in this release, because the Netatalk team deemed them to be of lower severity. These will be addressed in a future feature release.
For a summary of news and a detailed list of changes see the Release Notes.
Netatalk 4.4.2 is available
17th of April 2026
The Netatalk development team is proud to announce the latest release of the Netatalk 4.4 release series.
This fixes a build breakage on certain 32 bit systems that was introduced between v4.3 and v4.4, plus a range of stability and reliability fixes to afpd and the SQLite CNID backend.
For a summary of news and a detailed list of changes see the Release Notes.
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