About Netatalk

Netatalk is a Free and Open Source file server that implements the Apple Filing
Protocol (AFP) 3.4 over TCP/IP and AppleTalk. AFP is the primary file sharing
protocol used on Apple II, Classic Mac OS, and Mac OS X, as well as one of
several supported protocols on macOS. A *NIX/*BSD system running Netatalk
provides high-speed AppleShare file sharing for Mac clients.

Why Should I Use Netatalk?

If you have a local network of macOS, Mac OS X, Classic Mac OS, or even Apple II
computers, running a Netatalk AFP server allows you to share, collaborate on,
and back up files comfortably. The latest macOS at the time of writing (macOS 15
Sequoia) comes with a built-in AFP client, so Netatalk can act as a seamless
bridge between new and old Macs.

Compared to cross-platform file sharing protocols like NFS and FTP, Netatalk
delivers a Mac-like user experience, with seamless integration of Mac filesystem
metadata - including Extended Attributes on macOS and resource forks on Classic
Mac OS - and compatibility with modern macOS features such as Bonjour, Time
Machine, and Spotlight.

Compared to Samba, Netatalk has demonstrably faster transfer speeds, as well as
stronger backwards compatibility with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion clients and
earlier.

AppleTalk

Netatalk supports the AppleTalk family of protocols, including the DDP transport
layer for AFP file sharing with very old Macs or Apple II computers.

In addition, a print server, time server, MacIP gateway bridge, and Apple II
netboot server are also provided.

All versions of Netatalk except the 3.x release series can speak AppleTalk.

Website

The Netatalk website netatalk.io is where project updates and resources are
published, including documentation, release notes, security advisories, links to
related projects, and more.

Community

Netatalk developers and users can be found in online communal spaces like
TinkerDifferent or 68kmla. You can head over there if you want to ask for help
or share your Netatalk stories.

There is also an official Netatalk Discussions board on GitHub which is the best
place to ask for technical assistance.

Finally, the traditional place where Netatalk developers and users interact with
each other are the netatalk-admins and netatalk-devel mailing lists. While these
lists aren't as active as they used to be, the archives are a veritable treasure
trove of decades of Mac networking know-how.

Installation

Most OS distributions and package repositories ship a version of Netatalk. If
you want a pre-built binary package, try your package manager first.

To get started with building Netatalk from source code, the install readme is a
good starting point.

Container deployments

Netatalk runs well in a containerized environment.

Read the container readme for more information.

Webmin module

An administrative GUI frontend built on the Webmin 2.0 platform is distributed
with Netatalk.

See the Webmin README for instructions how to install and get started with the
module. or this overview of the module's feature set.

Contributions

Bug reports and feature requests should be filed as GitHub issue tickets.

Before contributing code to the project, please read the Developer Notes to
learn how to prepare a PR that is compliant with project guidelines.

PRs are automatically picked up by GitHub CI, which runs the builds, integration
tests, as well as static analysis scan on SonarCloud (the latter only for PRs
created by project members.)

Security

See the Security Policy for a breakdown of Netatalk version supported with
security patches, our security vulnerability reporting guidelines, as well as
the full record of historical security advisories.

We would love to hear from you if you think you found a security vulnerability
in Netatalk. Please read the above policy and then file a security issue ticket
with us. We promise to follow up with you as soon as possible.

Documentation

To aid in your installation and configuration of Netatalk, a comprehensive
manual is published on the project website.

Additionally, each Netatalk program and configuration file also has a roff man
page which can be accessed on the command line, f.e. man afpd.

Wiki

Collaborative articles can be found on the Netatalk wiki. The Netatalk website
also serves a static mirror of all wiki pages.

Editing is open to all registered GitHub users. We are looking forward to your
additions to existing material, or brand new articles on topics concerning
Netatalk and Mac networking.

We are Using GitHub Under Protest

This project is currently hosted on GitHub. This is not ideal; the GitHub
platform itself is a proprietary system that is not Free and Open Souce Software
(FOSS). We are deeply concerned about using a proprietary system like GitHub to
develop our FOSS project. We have an open ticket for project members and
volunteers to discuss how we can move away from GitHub in the long term.

The primary source of platform lock-in for this project, is the reliance on
GitHub-hosted CI runners for cross-platform builds and tests.

If you are a contributor who prefer not using GitHub, please see the Developer
FAQ for instructions how to submit patches without using GitHub directly.

Any use of this project's code by GitHub Copilot, past or present, is done
without our permission. We do not consent to GitHub's use of this project's code
in Copilot.
