The MacIPpi Rpi. The MacIPpi concept for Raspberry Pi.

[mactjaap]

Thanks for your compliment about the setup for the MacIPpi. Always my goal to to this stuff hassle free for the end uses.

Hmmmm. Dropbox on the MacIPpi…. Must be possible….

Dropbox on Linux: installing from source, commands, and repositories

The Dropbox desktop is available on supported Linux operating machines. Find out more about Dropbox Linux commands and how to configure Dropbox for Linux.

help.dropbox.com

Not much time at the moment unfortunately… but maybe there is someone else who has tried this on a Pi?

Will definitely try this for the new release!

 

[slipperygrey]

Alternatively, is there any other easy way -- not using DropBox -- to reliably and efficiently have 2-way syncing between a folder in DropBox on my main Mac and a folder on the MacIPpi? I know sync is hard.

Would it work to simply set up your dropbox directory as a shared AFP volume with netatalk?

Edit: I may be misunderstanding your requirements. Are you talking about sync with dropbox.com, or dropbox in the general sense (meaning a one-way write-only shared volume.) Netatalk 2.2 has had dropbox/dropkludge support built in for the last 20+ years but the code is bitrotted because noone has used it. See under Advanced Options on this man page: https://netatalk.sourceforge.io/2.2/htmldocs/AppleVolumes.default.5.html

 

[Scribe]

Would it work to simply set up your dropbox directory as a shared AFP volume with netatalk?

Edit: I may be misunderstanding your requirements. Are you talking about sync with dropbox.com, or dropbox in the general sense (meaning a one-way write-only shared volume.) Netatalk 2.2 has had dropbox/dropkludge support built in for the last 20+ years but the code is bitrotted because noone has used it. See under Advanced Options on this man page: https://netatalk.sourceforge.io/2.2/htmldocs/AppleVolumes.default.5.html

I think I want to selectively sync one folder (or maybe more than one, but one should suffice for now) that is in my DropBox account to the shared APF volume that is on my MacIPpi. My goal is to have 2-way read & write access to the contents of that folder from my vintage Macs (68k & PPC) that can not otherwise access DropBox through the DropBox app (or Maestral).

 

[slipperygrey]

I think I want to selectively sync one folder (or maybe more than one, but one should suffice for now) that is in my DropBox account to the shared APF volume that is on my MacIPpi. My goal is to have 2-way read & write access to the contents of that folder from my vintage Macs (68k & PPC) that can not otherwise access DropBox through the DropBox app (or Maestral).

So if you have a local directory that has the synced dropbox.com files, you can share that specific directory as an AFP shared volume. In the AppleVolumes.default config file, you can specify multiple shared volumes, one line each. So for instance:

/path/to/general/filesharing "File Server" /path/to/dropbox "Dropbox"

If you want different permissions or even UAMs for the dropbox.com dir you can append settings on that line. See the man page I linked above for details.

 

[Scribe]

So if you have a local directory that has the synced dropbox.com files, you can share that specific directory as an AFP shared volume. In the AppleVolumes.default config file, you can specify multiple shared volumes, one line each. So for instance:

/path/to/general/filesharing "File Server" /path/to/dropbox "Dropbox"

If you want different permissions or even UAMs for the dropbox.com dir you can append settings on that line. See the man page I linked above for details.

Sorry, but I don't really understand what any of that means. I know my way around the Mac GUI reasonably well, and I can follow very clear step-by-step instructions in the Terminal, but once you say "man page" my eyes start to glaze over.

 

[joshc]

Sorry, but I don't really understand what any of that means. I know my way around the Mac GUI reasonably well, and I can follow very clear step-by-step instructions in the Terminal, but once you say "man page" my eyes start to glaze over.

man page - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The man page he was referring to is this one: https://netatalk.sourceforge.io/2.2/htmldocs/AppleVolumes.default.5.html

 

[Scribe]

The man page he was referring to is this one: https://netatalk.sourceforge.io/2.2/htmldocs/AppleVolumes.default.5.html

Yeah. I got that. Still don't understand.

 

[slipperygrey]

Sorry, but I don't really understand what any of that means. I know my way around the Mac GUI reasonably well, and I can follow very clear step-by-step instructions in the Terminal, but once you say "man page" my eyes start to glaze over.

What I'm talking about is editing the configuration files for netatalk once you've set up dropbox.com syncing on the Linux system.

The article @mactjaap linked above describes how you install the dropbox Linux app and then use the CLI to start syncing. The default location seems to be ~/Dropbox (where ~ means your user's home dir.)

So once that syncing is set up, you can edit AppleVolumes.default to create a shared AFP volume with ~/Dropbox as per the examples above. Restart afpd and you should be set.

This is all hypothetical so far. No idea if Dropbox will choke on (or destroy) the metadata that netatalk creates.

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

Hi. I'm coming in w-a-a-a-a-y late on this. I have a 4mb Mac Plus and a Raspberry Pi. I would love to get the Mac to display some fun things like weather/time/etc in a screen saver, with data gated/synced via the Pi. What do I need to get started? Please excuse my lack of clue. I went through posts starting from the first one, some of the historical links are broken. I see Asante SCSI-ethernet adapters on eBay, I'm assuming I need to start with buying one.

 

[Scribe]

I was looking at the MacIPpi file system in the terminal and discovered that there are 4 users: macipgw, pi, timemachine, and x2gouser.

Also, the "pi" user has a bunch of empty directories in the home folder: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Public, Templates, and Videos.

Is there any compelling reason to keep all of these users and empty folders? Were they originally put in place for a specific purpose?

 

[akator70]

Since MacIPpi is built upon (an older) Raspberry Pi OS Desktop the pi user and those directories are the default configuration for the desktop. From what I read it appears to have been the intention for MacIPpi to have a working desktop along with the Mac specific server features.

 

[Snial]

Hi. I'm coming in w-a-a-a-a-y late on this. I have a 4mb Mac Plus and a Raspberry Pi. I would love to get the Mac to display some fun things like weather/time/etc in a screen saver, with data gated/synced via the Pi. What do I need to get started? Please excuse my lack of clue. I went through posts starting from the first one, some of the historical links are broken. I see Asante SCSI-ethernet adapters on eBay, I'm assuming I need to start with buying one.

Weather/Time/etc is going to be fairly low bandwidth, I would have thought. Maybe you're already sold on an Ethernet solution, but if not, why couldn't you just connect up the PI's serial port to one of the Mac's serial ports and squirt the data for now? Or maybe use an AirTalk and some kind of NetaTalk stack on your PI?

 

[mactjaap]

Sorry. Bit late with my answer. Since the MacIPpi stuff is my work an answer is needed:

About more users:
- yes more users are around. You can use the MacIPpi for many things. Also as full blown desktop and even for emulating a Macintosh. But that is only for advanced use (which I personally enjoy..)
- how to use it. Visit www.macip.net and read all about it. It is not that complex but you need a LocalTalk bridge (hardware or software)

 

[Scribe]

Sorry. Bit late with my answer. Since the MacIPpi stuff is my work an answer is needed:

About more users:
- yes more users are around. You can use the MacIPpi for many things. Also as full blown desktop and even for emulating a Macintosh. But that is only for advanced use (which I personally enjoy..)
- how to use it. Visit www.macip.net and read all about it. It is not that complex but you need a LocalTalk bridge (hardware or software)

Are the "timemachine" and "x2gouser" user-accounts required for anything specific? Can I just delete those 2 accounts?

 

[mactjaap]

timemachine account is backup / file sharing related and x2gouser is for Linux Desktop. See the web site https://www.macip.net

For ‘power users’ who want to do more with a MacIPRpi.

• It is a full usable Linux machine. LXDE as window manager. You can connect to it with X2go or RDP. Or add a monitor.

But sure...feel free to modify to your use! That's what I do myself too!

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

Weather/Time/etc is going to be fairly low bandwidth, I would have thought. Maybe you're already sold on an Ethernet solution, but if not, why couldn't you just connect up the PI's serial port to one of the Mac's serial ports and squirt the data for now? Or maybe use an AirTalk and some kind of NetaTalk stack on your PI?

Yes, I was thinking of a very low-byte experiment, both in terms of network and CPU. I do have AirTalk hardware but ran into some personal-side issues and haven't been able to do much lately. Right now I have the Mac Plus, and PB 3400, but will still need an RPi because the PB is running 7.6.1 and isn't modern enough to connect to 2024 internet APIs. So still wanting a turnkey way of getting the internet portion of things going, thinking the Pi is the way to go.

Thanks.

 

[Fizzbinn]

@mactjaap Any chance you might be working on a new MacIPRpi release? I use the heck out of my little RPi 4 MacIPRpi 5.02 but would love to pick up the latest Netatalk updates, not sure I'd be able to pull off the upgrade on my own (in addition to a Raspbian upgrade I should likely do).

 

[mactjaap]

@Fizzbinn

Yes... it is time I guess. And great that you would like to see an update. That is motivating.

But I have to prepare a little bit. I have no Raspberry Pi 5, so I will use a Pi 4.
I really love to use the latest and greatest Netatalk (4.0 ?).

Netatalk 4.0 - Future-proofing Apple File Sharing

The current Netatalk release series (2.x and 3.x) are finally in a good place where we have a modern and flexible build system, with fully functioning user authentication. I can finally pivot to what I wanted to do in the first place: consolidate the best of 2.x and 3.x into one Mac file sharing...

68kmla.org

I have my own MacIPRpi running 24/7 and use it for a lot of things.

There are quite a few things running on the MacIPRpi so updating involves quite a few steps.
Hope to get some time after summer.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Netatalk 4.0 might take awhile. The current 2.x branch is stable and can directly upgrade an older install.

 

[Fizzbinn]

@Fizzbinn

Yes... it is time I guess. And great that you would like to see an update. That is motivating.

But I have to prepare a little bit. I have no Raspberry Pi 5, so I will use a Pi 4.
I really love to use the latest and greatest Netatalk (4.0 ?).

Netatalk 4.0 - Future-proofing Apple File Sharing

The current Netatalk release series (2.x and 3.x) are finally in a good place where we have a modern and flexible build system, with fully functioning user authentication. I can finally pivot to what I wanted to do in the first place: consolidate the best of 2.x and 3.x into one Mac file sharing...

68kmla.org

I have my own MacIPRpi running 24/7 and use it for a lot of things.

There are quite a few things running on the MacIPRpi so updating involves quite a few steps.
Hope to get some time after summer.

Awesome! I certainly understand it may take some time.

I also run my MacIPRpi 24/7 (Raspberry Pi 4 2MB w64GB SD card) and primarily use it for a bunch of things:

• Retro computing file server ("bridge server" instead of "bridge machine" awesome client compatibility!)
• Print server for my AppleTalk only LaserWriter 4/600 (slow but still nice quality!)
• TimeLord server that I use to set the time on my AppleTalk connected Macs (I also always do that when working on one)
• Compact workbench computer (I have it mounted to the back of small LCD and use the black RPi Keyboard/Mouse)

That's not so say I don't use the actual MacIP gateway functionality or many of the other "power user" features/use case you documented, I just do so less oftenly. It really is as useful as a Swiss Army knife!

I HIGHLY recommend MacIPpi Rpi whenever I get the chance, for as much deserved attention things like BlueSCSI get its every bit if not more helpful for retro Mac fans in my opinion!