Connect to AppleShare over IP

[blindowl]

I use a Performa 6400 as an ethernet bridge and I can connect my non-ethernet Macs to my NAS FTP without any issues. The NAS also share its content over AFP, but I can't find a way to access the share under System 7.1. In later OS versions it's possible to connect using "Server IP address..." in Chooser > AppleShare, but not under System 7.1. I tried to update AppleShare Client to 3.7.2 (I think), and then I can see the "Server IP address..."-button, but AppleShare then crashes immediately. Has anyone managed to connect to an AFP share over IP under System 7.1?

 

[NJRoadfan]

Is the machine running System 7.1 also running Open Transport for networking (you will have a dedicated TCP/IP control panel NOT MacTCP)? AppleShare Client 3.7.4 requires Open Transport 1.3 and likely System 7.5.3.

I don't know if ASIP will work over MacIP (TCP/IP-over-AppleTalk, required for LocalTalk) or not. Your NAS is likely running netatalk 3.1 which is ASIP only, so you'll have to upgrade your clients or somehow find a way to downgrade the NAS to 2.2.6, which still supported AppleTalk and classic MacOS clients.

 

[blindowl]

Is the machine running System 7.1 also running Open Transport for networking (you will have a dedicated TCP/IP control panel NOT MacTCP)? AppleShare Client 3.7.4 requires Open Transport 1.3 and likely System 7.5.3.

I don't know if ASIP will work over MacIP (TCP/IP-over-AppleTalk, required for LocalTalk) or not. Your NAS is likely running netatalk 3.1 which is ASIP only, so you'll have to upgrade your clients or somehow find a way to downgrade the NAS to 2.2.6, which still supported AppleTalk and classic MacOS clients.

Yes I installed OT which was required to install AppleShare Client 3.7.2. And I couldn't try 3.7.4 because it requires System 7.5.3 like you say.

But you mean if I install Netatalk 2.2.6, e.g. on a Raspberry Pi (not sure if I can downgrade the NAS), its AFP share will be listed under AppleShare in Chooser?

 

[Mk.558]

There is an esosteric way to get AFP traffic tunneled over TCP packets but it's not a standard implementation. The only normal way you'll be able to have some semblance of AFP over TCP is with 7.5.x with ASC 3.7+ and OT 1.3 (ideally). Even then that only goes up to Tiger. ShareWay IP Personal does allow this in a normal sense -- I heard of complaints of slow traffic.

If you get Netatalk 2.1.6/2.2.x installed on any Linux machine it will show up, all the way back to System 3.3/Finder 5.4 with AppleShare WS 1.1 on a 512K. Netatalk is a server feature only. An alternative is to use Basilisk II/SheepShaver with Appletalk services -- this gets you a full fledged emulator.

 

[NathanHill]

I've been tinkering with this too on my NAS (Synology). My 7.5.3 Color Classic with OT 1.3 can see the AppleShare on my NAS, but my SE/30 with 7.1 and OT 1.1.2 doesn't see it (despite have Localtalk Bridge active on the Color Classic as well to bridge the Appletalk/Ethernet connections). I'll keep tinkering, but I do think it is because my NAS runs Netatalk 3.

 

[NJRoadfan]

If you log into the Synology box via SSH, you should be able to run the following command to get info on what AFP revision the installed netatalk 3.1 supports:

asip-status.pl localhost


I'm betting its AFP3.0 or higher, which can be an issue for machines running System 7.x. Certain types of (now insecure) authentication needed by older clients are disabled in later versions too.

this is the output of the above command from a netatalk 2.2.6 box.

AFP reply from localhost:548
Flags: 1  Cmd: 3  ID: 57005
Reply: DSIGetStatus
Request ID: 57005
Machine type: Netatalk2.2.6
AFP versions: AFPVersion 1.1,AFPVersion 2.0,AFPVersion 2.1,AFP2.2,AFPX03,AFP3.1,AFP3.2,AFP3.3
UAMs: DHX2,DHCAST128,2-Way Randnum exchange,Randnum exchange,Cleartxt Passwrd,No User Authent
Volume Icon & Mask: exist
Flags: SupportsCopyFile,SupportsServerMessages,SupportsServerSignature,SupportsTCP/IP,SupportsSrvrNotifications,SupportsOpenDirectory,SupportsUTF8Servername,SupportsUUIDs,SupportsSuperClient

 

[blindowl]

I just installed Netatalk 2.2.6 on a Raspberry but I definitely need to read up on all the configurations. Or do any of you have an example .conf for sharing a folder over AppleTalk?

 

[Cory5412]

I haven't used netatalk in a number of years, I don't think netatalk3 had even launched last time I used it, so I don't have a lot of current practical knowledge there, but I've been poking at ASIP-The-Apple-Server-Product and vintage Mac networking and file sharing.

Unfortunately, the practical lower limit to appleshare-over-IP clients I've found is system 7.5. It might be possible to manually install the 7.5 version of AppleShare and OpenTransport on 7.1 (7.5 is largely "batteries included" 7.1) but there's no gaurantee they'll work and most of the reason to run 7.1 over 7.6.1 is because you've got an '000 or you have under 10 megs of RAM.

Mac OS X Server 10.2 and maybe 10.3 should be able to talk AppleShare over AppleTalk, which is what 7.1's really expecting, so using that or a system 7/8/9 machine running asip5/6 server or something similar (or even just personal file sharing) may be in order as a bridge box. (I haven't tested these, however, but I have been meaning to.)

Once I switch vtools over to the OS X machine, I'm probably going to get a G4 mac mini and keep an OS9 machine running ASIP hanging around purely for that kind of appleshare-over-appletalk scenario.

When people say to use netatalk2, the thing that Netatalk2 is doing is talking appleshare-over-appletalk onto your lan, in addition to talking appleshare-over-IP for newer Macs to use.

I've been wanting to re-test Windows 2003 for this as well. It has a big volume limit, it's nominally possible to make modern OSX and Windows speak to it with SMB, and it can speak appleshare-over-appletlak as well as appleshare-over-IP.

To make matters worse here, it sounds like on the 7.1 machine there's no ethernet, so there's macip translation involved as well, which is going to involve a router or a macip bridge appliance and getting all of the OT/AS versions as high as possible, so this is an area where when it's possible, using a newer protocol and client version is needed up to a certain point.

10.4 is a great modern bridge because it speaks with all future versions of OS X (and now 11.0 as well) via AFP (and SFTP) and it talks to 7.5+ with the OT/AS updates and if you want much older than that you'll need either FTP on the old end (and, 10.4's FTP server works better than ASIP6's IME) or a second bridge. (Also, 10.4 supports 16TB volumes, 10.2-10.3 support 8 and prior to 10.2 you get up to 2TB volumes in classic. For Windows/Linux servers those limits are of course going to differ.)

 

[Mk.558]

I've been tinkering with this too on my NAS (Synology). My 7.5.3 Color Classic with OT 1.3 can see the AppleShare on my NAS, but my SE/30 with 7.1 and OT 1.1.2 doesn't see it (despite have Localtalk Bridge active on the Color Classic as well to bridge the Appletalk/Ethernet connections). I'll keep tinkering, but I do think it is because my NAS runs Netatalk 3.

LocalTalk Bridge is behaving like a software AFP Bridge. Hardware AFP bridge like the Farallon iPrint LT, AsanteTalk boxes and similar things like the EtherWave Printer Adapter(1) are not going to change your connection level. EG if I have a S3.3/F5.4 system, like a 512Ke, that won't connect to a Mac running 10.4 Tiger, no matter what you do. The Appleshare WorkStation software is just too old. 7.1 will never see your NAS Share because unless the NAS is running Netatalk v2.x it will never work with it.

I just installed Netatalk 2.2.6 on a Raspberry but I definitely need to read up on all the configurations. Or do any of you have an example .conf for sharing a folder over AppleTalk?

The Guide should be able to help with that in the Linux setup part. There's other references for Pi specific particulars.

Cory, I'd be interested in your work with 2003 Server. *quickly checks ebay* ...some pricey stuff there, but can poke around for a disc for $30 bones. I don't have a PC that can run it properly, but it sounds neat. I was actually kind of impressed with Win 2K Server's SFM services. I also never tried OS X Server.

 

[NathanHill]

My Synology is running Netatalk 3.1.8. It appears to be a non-traditional install too, as there are not the usual conf files available. (Probably so that the web GUI can control a few of its main functions.)

When I do "afpd -v", it comes across as:

AFP versions: 2.2 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

Yes, I was certainly not holding my breath with the Localtalk bridge, but it was worth a try since I already had the control panel downloaded. My Color Classic is in process of being dismantled to work on the analog board, but I have a Performa 5215 CD that I have as an option for a bridge as well for my SE/30. Long term though, I will get an Ethernet card or a SCSI-ethernet device. The final option would be a SLIRP setup, which sounds so crazy and fun to at least try.

Still, LocalTalk bridge software and hardware is really interesting stuff. I'm enjoying reading about it on the Classic Mac Networking v3.1 page.

 

[Mk.558]

SLiRP is going to be slower than MacIP, such as using IPNetRouter.

The fastest connection you're going to get over a serial port is with a TCP/IP capable bridge, such as the Farallon EtherWave Mac/PB Adapter, also known as the Farallon Printer Adapter, PN 842; these support overclocking the serial port. If you look on this subsection you'll find speed ratings for each common implementation (and some nonstandard ones, like Direct Parallel Port transfer, it's kinda weird): in there you'll see AFP and FTP transfer speeds. The highest I got with a EtherWave adapter was 80KiB/s download on a PowerBook 1400cs. That is roughly 4 times faster than the typical LocalTalk bit rate of 230400bps or about 18-20KiB/sec on decent hardware. Less than decent hardware -- well, it's all in the table for reference.

Having an eye out around for one of those adapters is a good idea. I have one that doesn't work right ATM, it probably needs a recap. I did get another one off eBay recently, we'll see how it works. If you want to get a speed test of IPNetRouter I won't be able to help with that since I don't have a bridge machine available.

On the other hand on the opposite spectrum is "cooking with gas": using a NuBUS 10/100 card (those aren't very common) with System 6 powered by a 33MHz 68040. Hot stuff that is fast.

 

[NJRoadfan]

AFP 2.2 is the first TCP/IP compatible version, no surprises there. Netatalk 2.2.x really is the Rosetta Stone of AFP servers. It works with just about every client. One of these days I'll have to pull out PCMacLAN 9.0 and give that a shot too. FWIW, Windows Services For Macintosh is well written for what it is. It even uses NTFS alternate data streams to store resource forks!

As for LocalTalk bridges.....they can be... umm...interesting to configure. The Kinetics/Shiva Fastpath is a bit weird to configure at first, esp. if you are stuck with a Fastpath 4 and the older FastPath Manager software.

 

[Cory5412]

AFP Bridge. Hardware AFP bridge

I've always wondered what you meant by this phrasing and calling these things AFP bridges is incorrect and confusing. They are AppleTalk Bridges. They are bridging AppleTalk from the LocalTalk physical layer to the EtherNet ("EtherTalk") physical layer.\

AppleTalk is a network protocol akin to TCP/IP or IPX. It can ride on multiple physical layers, including ethernet, localtalk, and infrared.

AFP is an application protocol that can be used over AppleTalk as well as LocalTalk. It's nominally possible to do email over LocalTalk (see also PowerTalk) but ASIP6 implies that it's also possible to route POP/IMAP and SMTP over AppleTalk)

And, further, it's possible to use MacIP to encapsulate TCP/IP information within AppleTalk (this is what MacIPGW does, along with some physical routers such as the Shiva FastPath, I believe Cisco might have had some routers that could do this) (it behaves, as my understanding goes, like a VPN, but I might be misunderstanding that possible.). It is, in fact, technically possible to use MacIP for IP communications over ethernet, if you were somehow inclined. (I don't know why, but there might hypothetically be a reason.) It's also possible to use MacIP to talk AppleShare-over-IP over Localtalk. (i.e. my Classic II could do this with 7.5/7.6 + AT/OS updates, if I had MacIPGW or a 

In fact, many of the AppleTalk bridges like the iPrint that you mentioned are explicitly for non-AFP usage. ("for" in a marketing sense, the point of the iPrint was to connect newer Ethernet-based Macs to older localtalk printers, but older localtalk macs could come along for the ride as well.)

Cory, I'd be interested in your work with 2003 Server. *quickly checks ebay* ...some pricey stuff there, but can poke around for a disc for $30 bones. I don't have a PC that can run it properly, but it sounds neat. I was actually kind of impressed with Win 2K Server's SFM services. I also never tried OS X Server.

To be honest, I was just gonna steal it. It's over fifteen years old at this point and stopped receiving security patches officially over five years ago. Internet Archive has a pre-activated datacenter edition ISO. The real discovery point will be whether or not a Server 2003 VM can speak the AppleTalk protocol on Hyper-V. MacIPGW and A2Server do this "fine" in VMware and VirtualBox, so just switching over to one of those isn't out of the question, but I already run a virtualization server with Hyper-V, so that would be more convenient for me.

Anyway, I'll poke at that at some point. I've got a CII and the 1400 behind an AppleTalk bridge (helpfully, one of the printer oriented ones, but I know it works fine) and see what I can get going.

I workshopped doing vtools on Windows 2003 mostly to get reliability and something that's easy to administer and supports big volumes.

My experiments so far with OS X Server 10.4 though show that for the purposes of vtools, OS X is fine. It won't speak AFP-over-appletalk but I don't have the tools necessary to pipe appletalk over the Internet anyway. 

 

[NJRoadfan]

MacIP is not a VPN, just encapsulation since LocalTalk doesn't have a native TCP/IP stack. Clients appear on the network just like native Ethernet machines. The hardware routers offered multiple addressing options. You could do a separate subnet and setup RIP or static routes on your main router, or they could do Proxy ARP for the client IPs in an existing subnet (I do this with my Fastpath). You could do MacIP with Ethernet machines, but I don't see that as being common. Maybe some paranoid sysadmin did it for security or was too lazy to setup separate IP network addressing.

The reason why Localtalk-to-Ethernet solutions suddenly became plentiful and affordable in 1998-99 was the iMac and the removal of LocalTalk. Tons of people had printers that were working perfectly fine but no way to connect them!

 

[cheesestraws]

MacIP is not a VPN, just encapsulation

The line between "VPN" and "encapsulated overlay network" is very very wobbly, in fairness.

 

[Mk.558]

You have been the first person to call me out on calling those bridges AFP bridges instead of AppleTalk bridges.

I'm inclined to believe that you are correct, I must have been in error on my understanding of AppleTalk vs AFP. They're physical layer bridges, not exactly protocol bridges or software based encapsulation/man-in-the-middle translation devices.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Technically they are Localtalk-to-Ethernet bridges, its just that the only layer-3 protocol on the LocalTalk side is DDP AppleTalk. I've never played with the lower end devices like that AsanteTalk and DaynaTalk "printer" adapters, so I don't know if they do any sort of advanced AppleTalk routing like the FastPath or GatorBox. The latter allow you to configure them as "seed" routers and create specific zone names and network numbers for the LocalTalk and EtherTalk sides of the network.

 

[Mk.558]

I thought about the reasons I called them that in the Guide was to differentiate bridges that can forward/direct IP traffic and ones that cannot. For instance, a Gatorbox CS can route LocalTalk traffic, allow EtherTalk networks to talk to LocalTalk networks, route TCP traffic through to machines using MacIP off the serial ports, and so on. I wouldn't know how to link IRTalk or TokenTalk networks, I'm not familiar with those hardware implementations as much.

Then you have boxes like the Farallon iPrint LT, the AsanteTalk boxes, these only work as physical layer bridges, they can't route TCP traffic. Only the Farallon EtherWave Mac/PB (also called the EtherWave Printer Adapter) can do TCP routing off the serial port sans GatorBox/FastPath.

So with that in mind, what do you call them? A tomato is a fruit, but we don't really think of it when we think of fruit.

 

[cheesestraws]

So with that in mind, what do you call them? A tomato is a fruit, but we don't really think of it when we think of fruit.

If you want to draw attention to the packet protocol, the thing to call them is DDP bridges; DDP being the AppleTalk equivalent protocol to IP.  What they are absolutely not is AFP bridges, AFP being an application-layer protocol.  The bridges don't care at all about AFP.

In fact, you can't run IP at all over LocalTalk, so by saying 'LocalTalk bridge' you're already making this distinction anyway.

I thought about the reasons I called them that in the Guide was to differentiate bridges that can forward/direct IP traffic and ones that cannot.

MacIP is, at least in theory, a completely separate thing, though.  They're just often in one box.

(I've been trying to work out terminology here myself, because I'm not convinced that 'a localtalk bridge' is necessarily a meaningful category.  But calling it an AFP bridge is even more confusing.

 

[MichaelLAX]

My experiments so far with OS X Server 10.4 though show that for the purposes of vtools, OS X is fine. It won't speak AFP-over-appletalk but I don't have the tools necessary to pipe appletalk over the Internet anyway.

I am trying to get my Mac SE/30 with 7.5.3 and OT 1.3 and. AppleShare Client 3.7.4 to "see" my MacMini2,1 running OS X Tiger Server. I first used a Farallon iPrint, but now use a PowerBook 1400 with the LocalTalk Bridge control panel to connect the two.

I am well versed in the Classic Mac Networking Guide which taught me to install those versions.

In the SE/30 Chooser I can see "MacMini2,1" and if I try to connect to it, I get a dialog box that comes up with my Michael login and when I enter my password, it fails and says to retry later every time.

Now I am not that schooled in OS X Server, so maybe there is a setting I am missing there; I do have AFP turned on for Michael.

I am not trying to connect to the Internet; I just want to eliminate SneakerNet from the MacMini2,1 (that has a USB 1.4MB floppy drive) and be able to directly see one direction or the other between these two legacy Macs.

Ultimately I download software for the SE/30 on my 2020 M1 MacMini and use WiFi to File Share it over to the MacMini2,1 successfully.

So again, I am just trying to get the link between the SE/30 to the MacMini2,1 to function in one direction or the other.

Thank you.