netatalk.io

Containerized Netatalk

Netatalk comes with a Dockerfile and entry point script for running a containerized AFP server and AppleTalk services.

Out of the box, exactly two users, and two shared volumes are supported in this container. One of the shared volumes is a backup volume by default. If you need a different setup, please use the manual configuration option.

We use podman in these examples, but the Netatalk container should work with any OCI compliant container runtime such as Docker or CRI-O.

Make sure you have a container runtime installed, then build the netatalk container:

podman build -f distrib/docker/netatalk.Dockerfile .

Alternatively, pull a pre-built container image from Docker Hub or GHCR.

How to Run

Once you have the netatalk image on your machine run it with your preferred container runtime.

The easiest way to get started is to use the included compose.yml file.

podman compose -f distrib/docker/compose.yml up

You just need to edit the file to set the AFP_USER and AFP_PASS environment variables first.

Configuration

The easiest way to enable full functionality including Zeroconf service discovery and AppleTalk is to use the host network driver.

For a hardened deployment, use the bridge network driver and expose port 548 for AFP. However, Zeroconf service discovery may not work and you will have to manually specify the IP address in the client when connecting to the file server.

It is recommended to set up a managed volume for persistent storage. Without this, the shared volume be stored in volatile storage that is lost upon container shutdown.

Below follows a sample podman run command for illustration. Substitute AFP_USER and AFP_PASS with the appropriate user and password, and ATALKD_INTERFACE with the network interface to use for AppleTalk.

We recommend named volumes for the shared volumes, but you can also use bind mounts to host machine directories if you prefer, as long as the permissions are set correctly for the AFP_USER and AFP_GROUP and AFP_UID, and AFP_GID if set to match the user and group ids on the host machine.

You also need to set the timezone with TZ to the IANA time zone ID for your location, in order to get the correct time synchronized with the Timelord time server.

podman run --rm \
  --network host \
  --cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
  --volume "afpshare:/mnt/afpshare" \
  --volume "afpbackup:/mnt/afpbackup" \
  --volume "/var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus" \
  --env AFP_USER= \
  --env AFP_PASS= \
  --env AFP_GROUP=afpusers \
  --env ATALKD_INTERFACE=eth0 \
  --env TZ=Europe/Stockholm \
  --name netatalk netatalk:latest

Constraints

The most straight forward way to enable Zeroconf service discovery as well as the AppleTalk transport layer, is to use the host network driver and NET_ADMIN capabilities.

Additionally, we rely on the host’s D-Bus for Zeroconf, achieved with a bind mount such as /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus. The left hand side of the bind mount is the host machine, and the right hand side is the container. The host machine path may have to be changed to match the location of D-Bus on the host machine.

On certain host OSes, notably Ubuntu: if the Apparmor security policy restricts D-Bus messages, enable the unconfined security option.

Example for the docker compose yaml configuration file:

    security_opt:
      - apparmor=unconfined

See the Docker AppArmor security profiles documentation for further details.

The container is hard coded to output afpd (the Netatalk file server daemon) logs to the container’s stdout, with default log level info. Logs from the AppleTalk daemons are sent to the syslog.

File search on mounted volumes in the Finder is supported with the cnid Spotlight backend. The cnid backend supports filename search only, no file content or metadata index searching. This is recommend over localsearch/xapian (full content indexing) in production environments for technical and privacy reasons.

MySQL CNID Backend

The MySQL CNID backend is an alternative to the default Berkeley DB CNID backend which offers better scalability.

Here follows a compose example to run a container network with MariaDB as the database for the MySQL CNID backend, plus a web interface to administer the database for good measure.

Set AFP_CNID_SQL_PASS and MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD to the same password.

services:
  netatalk:
    image: netatalk:latest
    networks:
      - afp_network
    ports:
      - "548:548"
    volumes:
      - afpshare:/mnt/afpshare
      - afpbackup:/mnt/afpbackup
      - /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus
    environment:
      - AFP_USER=atalk1
      - AFP_USER2=atalk2
      - AFP_PASS=
      - AFP_PASS2=
      - AFP_GROUP=afpusers
      - AFP_CNID_BACKEND=mysql
      - AFP_CNID_SQL_HOST=cnid_db
      - AFP_CNID_SQL_PASS=
    depends_on:
      - cnid_db

  cnid_db:
    image: mariadb:latest
    restart: always
    networks:
      - afp_network
    volumes:
      - cnid_db_data:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=

  adminer:
    image: adminer:latest
    restart: always
    networks:
      - afp_network
    ports:
      - 8081:8080

volumes:
  afpshare:
    name: afpshare
  afpbackup:
    name: afpbackup
  cnid_db_data:
    name: cnid_db_data

networks:
  afp_network:
    driver: bridge

Webmin Module

Netatalk’s Webmin module is distributed as a separate container image. The module allows you to administer the Netatalk configuration via a web interface. Here follows an example compose configuration to run the module in a container.

Note that since the netatalk daemons run in a separate container, we cannot control the services directly. Instead, activate polling of changes to the afp.conf configuration file. Set AFP_CONFIG_POLLING to the number of seconds to wait between polling attempts.

services:
  netatalk:
    image: netatalk:latest
    networks:
      - afp_network
    ports:
      - "548:548"
    volumes:
      - afpshare:/mnt/afpshare
      - afpbackup:/mnt/afpbackup
      - afpconf:/etc/netatalk
      - /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus
    environment:
      - AFP_USER=atalk1
      - AFP_USER2=atalk2
      - AFP_PASS=
      - AFP_PASS2=
      - AFP_GROUP=afpusers
      - AFP_CONFIG_POLLING=5
      - MANUAL_CONFIG=1

  webmin:
    image: netatalk_webmin_module:latest
    networks:
      - afp_network
    ports:
      - "10000:10000"
    volumes:
      - afpconf:/etc/netatalk
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    environment:
      - WEBMIN_USER=admin
      - WEBMIN_PASS=
    depends_on:
      - netatalk

volumes:
  afpshare:
    name: afpshare
  afpbackup:
    name: afpbackup
  afpconf:
    name: afpconf

networks:
  afp_network:
    driver: bridge

Printing

The CUPS administrative web app is running on port 631 in the container, which is exposed to the host machine by default when using the host network driver. This is used to configure CUPS compatible printers for printing from an old Mac or Apple IIGS.

You may have to restart papd (or the entire container) after adding a CUPS printer for it to be picked up as an AppleTalk printer.

Environment Variables

Mandatory Settings

These are required to set the credentials used to authenticate with the file server.

Mandatory for AppleTalk

Optional Settings

Value Type

Set this environment variable to a specific value or string.

Boolean Type

Set these environment variables to a non-zero value to enable, ex. “1”