netatalk.io

Docker

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 Time Machine backup volume by default. If you need a different setup, please use the manual configuration option.

Make sure you have Docker Engine installed, then build the netatalk container:

docker build -t netatalk:latest .

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

How to Run

Once you have the netatalk image on your machine with Docker Engine, run it with docker run or docker compose.

To enable full functionality including Zeroconf service discovery and AppleTalk, use the host network driver.

For a hardened deployment, use the bridge network driver and expose port 548 for AFP. However, this means that you will have to manually specify the IP address in the client when connecting to the file server.

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

For Docker Compose, you can use the sample docker-compose.yml file that is distributed with this source code.

Below follows a sample docker run command. Substitute /path/to/share with an actual path on your file system with appropriate permissions, AFP_USER and AFP_PASS with the appropriate user and password, and ATALKD_INTERFACE with the network interface to use for AppleTalk.

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.

docker run --rm \
  --network host \
  --cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
  --volume "/path/to/share:/mnt/afpshare" \
  --volume "/path/to/backup:/mnt/afpbackup" \
  --volume "/var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus" \
  --env AFP_USER= \
  --env AFP_PASS= \
  --env AFP_GROUP=afpusers \
  --env ATALKD_INTERFACE= \
  --env TZ= \
  --name netatalk netatalk:latest

Constraints

In order to use Zeroconf service discovery as well as the AppleTalk transport layer, the host network driver and NET_ADMIN capabilities are mandatory.

Additionally, we rely on the host’s DBUS 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 DBUS 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.

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

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

Mandatory for AppleTalk

Optional