Q605 not seeing FreeBSD/Netatalk server

[weif]

My Quadra 605 running MacOS 7.6 does not see the shares on my FreeBSD 7.2 with Netatalk running. I can confirm that afpd and atalkd are running.

The network is currently Q605 -> PhoneNet LocalTalk -> AsanteTalk Bridge -> 10base-T hub -> DSL modem (as 10/100base-T hub) -> FreeBSD

The traffic lights on the AsanteTalk seem to light up appropriately when there is traffic on the network.

Any ideas?

 

[macgeek417]

have you tried just installing an ethernet card?

 

[porter]

Does "nbplkup" run on the server show up the 605 as a workstation?

 

[shred]

It'd be handy to know a bit more about your Netatalk setup (maybe post relevant parts of the config files: atalkd.conf and AppleVolumes,default would be good).

Did you re-compile the kernel with the AppleTalk protocol installed ("options NETATALK")?

Any weird and wonderful errors being logged to /var/log/messages when you start up the Netatalk daemons?

It's been a while since I fiddled with Netatalk, since once you get it set up "it just goes" and you can sort of forget about it.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I'm actually more interested in the Asante box. Do you have another known-good Mac you can put on the other side of the bridge to make sure that the Asante is routing AppleTalk correctly?

 

[shred]

Unless the Asante bridge is one of those "crippled" bridges that only work with printers, I suspect it's just "dumb" bridge and will happily shunt AppleTalk packets back and forth without looking inside them (there's no routing involved).

Since NetAtalk supports Classic AppleTalk, there's no issue with MacIP or anything like that. However, there's a lot to potentially go wrong with NetAtalk if you haven't set it up before - lots of config options to play with.

 

[weif]

Thanks for all the tips, everyone.

Yes, the kernel was compiled with netatalk enabled.

I don't see any errors (at least nothing I think are errors) in /var/log/messages when I start netatalk, and netatalk does start on boot.

However, now that I have sharing enabled (and a folder shared) on the Mac, I'm still not seeing that server from the FreeBSD machine.

$ nbplkup

janetweif:AFPServer 1000.142:132

janet:Workstationweif 1000.142:4

janet:netatalkweif 1000.142:4

(Janet being the FreeBSD machine).

 

[weif]

the AsanteTalk packaging says it allows your ethernet Mac "to communicate with up to eight LocalTalk devices, including LocalTalk Macintoshes and LocalTalk supported printers." I would assume that that means that it just shunts all AppleTalk/LocalTalk packets without discrimination.

 

[weif]

.conf file stuff:

from atalkd.conf:

fxp0 -seed -phase 2 -net 1-1000 -addr 1000.142 -zone "weif"

This seems to match what I see in /var/log/messages

afpd.conf is empty (except the comments it ships with), because the default sounded fine from what I read in the documentation.

AppleVolumes.default and AppleVolumes.system are also just the defaults, so AppleVolumes.default contains a reference to ~ to make the user's home directory available as a share.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to another Mac to test with.

 

[porter]

Once the machines are all up and running and you think everything should be working, unplug the power to the AsanteTalk, wait a minute, then and re apply the power to it.

This should force the AsanteTalk box to renegotiate the zones. Unless you have a bridge or other device managing the AppleTalk network, all configuration should be blank.

I personally have a Win2k server box providing three Zones, when I repower up the AsanteBox the Mac leaps into life saying that the "Network is now available".

 

[weif]

If I unplug the AsanteTalk for a minute, the Mac tells me that the AppleTalk network is not available. If I then plug it in I do get the alert from the Mac that the AppleTalk network is available (well, after a minute or so). However, the Mac still doesn't see a server, and the FreeBSD machine still doesn't see the Mac.

 

[porter]

I would clear the address and zone information from your netatalk.conf.

Zones only make sense to netatalk if it is active on multiple network cards and acting as a bridge between them.

Remember the LocalTalk mac can't deal with Zones by itself, the netatalk's net address needs to be in the zoneless range (something like >65280).

 

[weif]

Porter,

Thanks a lot.

That was interesting. I removed (well, commented) the config line in the atalkd.conf and restarted services, then power cycled the AsanteTalk.

when I checked from both sides to see if they could see each other, there was nothing. After a couple minutes, I tried again and then the Mac alerted me that my network was available and:

$ nbplkup

janetweif:AFPServer 65280.144:132

janet:netatalkweif 65280.144:4

janet:Workstationweif 65280.144:4

AsantTalk 94B032F5:AsantTalk 65300.31:252

KeithÕs Macintosh:AFPServer 65300.32:250

KeithÕs Macintosh:ARA - Client-Only 65300.32:2

KeithÕs Macintosh: Macintosh 65300.32:252

KeithÕs Macintosh:Workstation 65300.32:4

And the chooser shows the FreeBSD server.

Much progress and goodness.

However, when I try to connect to the share on "janetweif" from the chooser, I get an error, "This file server does not use a recognizable log on sequence."

Though connecting to the machine directly would be awesome (probably some configuration setting for authentication in afpd.conf?), If I can get macipgw or something similar running that would give a usable workaround.

Thanks

 

[porter]

I would concentrate on getting AFP going. At least that is what netatalk is good at doing.

 

[QuadSix50]

Not sure if this is applicable in your situation, but I'm running Netatalk under Slackware 13 (upgraded from Slackware 12.1). After my upgrade, I noticed that I couldn't connect to my Slackware PC anymore from the Q650 running Mac OS 8.1. Apparently, the version of Netatalk under Slack 13 (2.0.4 from what I can tell) disables the cleartext authentication by default. I had to add the uams_clrtxt.so module in afpd.conf and everything started working as it did before with the Q650.

 

[weif]

Thanks. That did it. I can connect to the server from the Mac, and transfer files.

Now to see if I can get macipgw to compile...

Interestingly enough, the response from Asante (which took several days) is that (despite the labeling?) that only slow macintoshes can be on the LocalTalk side of the converter, or the connection won't be reliable. With what little I've done on that, I haven't seen a reliability issue, once I got netatalk configured correctly to support MacOS 7.6.