Installing Netatalk on Ubuntu
Install Netatalk
netatalk is distributed as a package in Ubuntu. You can use apt to install it.
Ex. (with root privileges)
apt install netatalk
For building and installing from source yourself, for instance to get a newer version, follow the guides linked here.
Setting Up
Edit /usr/local/etc/afp.conf.
Ex:
[Global]
[Homes]
basedir regex = /home
[Test Volume]
path = /export/test1
[My Time Machine Volume]
path = /export/timemachine
time machine = yes
It’s recommended to enable extended attributes of filesystem. You can
check it by getfattr and setfattr commands.
If you use ACL, you shoud check it by getfacl and setfacl commands.
If these are disabled, use tune2fs command or edit /etc/fstab file.
Ex:
/dev/sdc2 /mountpoint ext4 defaults,user_xattr,acl 0 2
You should check firewall. AFP’s port number is 548. Zeroconf’s port
number is 5353.
Enabling and Starting
The systemd unit file is /lib/systemd/system/netatalk.service. You
must run Avahi ahead of Netatalk.
$ sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon
$ sudo systemctl enable netatalk
$ sudo systemctl start avahi-daemon
$ sudo systemctl start netatalk
Spotlight Feature
If you want to use the Spotlight feature, set spotlight = yes.
Set spotlight = no for Time Machine’s volume.
The mining for sparsebundle is wasteful.
Ex:
[Global]
spotlight = yes
[Homes]
basedir regex = /home
[Test Volume]
path = /export/test1
[My Time Machine Volume]
path = /export/timemachine
time machine = yes
spotlight = no
Footnotes
This is a mirror of the Netatalk GitHub Wiki. Please visit the original page if you want to correct an error or contribute new contents.
Last updated 2025-09-07
