Help me find a realistic solution to my problem

Somewhat branching from my "Don't know Jack" about Pi3 thread, I now have gotten at least on piece of the puzzle down: I have used the Pi with MacIPRPi to successfully set up CUPS to share my laser printer. Works very well, and that was at least 1/2 of the puzzle. The other half is:

- Figuring out how to host part of my RAID drive that is attached to my 2014 Mac Mini so that classic AppleTalk machines (System 6/7) can connect to it.

So far, the various things I have wanted to try are:

1. Using SheepShaver on the Mac Mini to somehow share the files via AppleTalk (doesn't seem to work, since the only way to access the RAID drive is via the "Unix" virtual drive in SheepShaver, and it appears that one cannot share that via File Sharing under the emulated OS 9).

2. Try the above with Basalisk II (didn't get far since setting up AppleTalk on there and routing it through the physical Mac Mini ethernet interface is ridiculously complex).

3. Start my Mac Mini G4 in OS 9 via some OS9Lives trickery (too much of a pain because I need to do OF-type stuff, and it isn't connected to a physical monitor, etc...and it still doesn't allow me to only use one machine to host the files)

4. Modify the MacIPRPi setup to somehow mount the RAID drive from the Mac Mini and then share it via AppleTalk.

Number 4 is what I think is the best idea, since it will already be on hosting the printer CUPS service. The only issue is, I have absolutely no idea how to configure this thing. First off, I know nothing at all about command line, and every guide to this stuff assumes you are some sort of command line genius and already know how to access all of the commands and files from memory and how it all works.me I try, I also fall victim to this weird Debian bug (it seems) where the keyboard is stuck in some sort of British mode. No matter how I try and configure it, Shift-3 produced British monetary pound signs, instead of US pound signs (#). That makes it hard to type in commands that need that!

So, I am somewhat frustrated that I cannot seem to get this to work properly. Any chance that someone can hand hold the blind man through this maze?

Without knowing the current Mac OS version on your 2014 Mac Mini, it's hard to say what to suggest. Assuming you are using Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite (which it shipped with) on it, you're going to have trouble because System 6 and System 7 won't connect to it using AppleTalk, but you already know that. There is a way to give SheepShaver a real network but it's complicated if you want directions I have them.

There is also a way with VirtualBox to mount real drives (a RAID if it's in a supported format) to a Virtual Machine and if this Virtual Machine is running a version of Mac OS that supports AppleTalk clients, such as 10.4 or 10.5 then this could possible be your solution. Of course the RAID would then only be directly available to the Virtual Machine and not your 2014 Mac Mini. Because the Virtual Machine will be bridging the ethernet connection on your 2014 Mac Mini in promiscuous mode, you would have networking from the 2014 Mac mini to the Virtual Machine OS and vise versa plus the Virtual Machine OS Mac OS X file server will be accessible from Mac OS 6/7 clients when setup to do so, if they're on the same network. I once did this and the Virtual Machine Mac OS was Mac OS 10.5 Server edition which VirtualBox had no issue running. Setup is lengthy but once done, it will keep on working. Mine was up for 7 years with a RAID attached like explained and continued to work great. No longer needed this solution so I took it down but I saved the directions. If you decide to try it and you need assistance lmk.

So I’ll give you a little more background: it’s running 10.14 I believe, kept that way as it was the last system to allow AFP shares. The RAID is connected via TB and appears as just another HD. The drive needs to be shared via the Mac Mini, as it is used to file sharing between modern Macs, as well as holding and serving all the house video entertainment via Home Sharing to Apple TVs, etc. I can’t have it not appear on the Mini as in the Virtual Box solution.

The issue with the SheepShaver solution is it appears that one is unable to share the Unix directory as a drive - file sharing is never able to be enabled on it. So, unless there is a fix for that, that is out.

Again, I’d like to mount and share the thing via the Pi, I’m just unable to figure out how to do so.