Installing on Debian 12

[rwb196884]

Tried to follow the inctructions at https://netatalk.io/docs/Installing-Netatalk-2-on-Debian

The first time it worked and systemctl status netatalk says active but nothing can connect.

After trying https://gist.github.com/agrlh/7618ed3e46fb02388022 make all now fails.

# pwd
/root/netatalk
# git status
On branch branch-netatalk-2-3
nothing to commit, working tree clean
# ./configure
...
# make all
make  all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk'
Making all in include
make[2]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/include'
Making all in atalk
make[3]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/include/atalk'
make  all-am
make[4]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/include/atalk'
make[4]: Nothing to be done for 'all-am'.
make[4]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/include/atalk'
make[3]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/include/atalk'
make[3]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/include'
make[3]: Nothing to be done for 'all-am'.
make[3]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/include'
make[2]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/include'
Making all in libatalk
make[2]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/libatalk'
Making all in acl
make[3]: Entering directory '/root/netatalk/libatalk/acl'
  CC       libacl_la-cache.lo
  CC       libacl_la-unix.lo
  CC       libacl_la-uuid.lo
  CC       libacl_la-ldap.lo
  CC       libacl_la-ldap_config.lo
  CCLD     libacl.la
ar: /root/netatalk/libatalk/acl/.libs/libacl.a: No such file or directory
make[3]: *** [Makefile:482: libacl.la] Error 9
make[3]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/libatalk/acl'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:633: all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk/libatalk'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:524: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/root/netatalk'
make: *** [Makefile:456: all] Error 2

[rdmark]

To see the status of netatalk v2 you need to run systemctl status afpd … because the “netatalk” service is what netatalk v3 uses but not v2.

To assist with the connection issue please tell us:

• the contents of your afpd.conf
• Which Mac OS versions you’re connecting from
• And in the case of classic Mac OS, also what version of the AppleShare client you have installed.

The most likely cause is that you don’t have the right UAM active for your clients.

See also:

• https://netatalk.io/docs/Connect-to-AFP-Server-from-Mac-clients
• https://netatalk.io/oldstable/htmldocs/configuration#authentication

Now the make error is easy: just run make clean and start over.

[rdmark]

@dgsga I assume you’ve also seen the libacl.a issue in the past? I’m hoping it will just go away when moving to the Meson build system… but I’m considering trying to fix the automake bug anyways since it’s so obnoxious.

[dgsga]

Hmm, I can't say I have. have been testing 2.3.1 on Deb 12.5 and it compiles fine. As for the issue going away with meson the answer is a resounding yes.

[rdmark]

@dgsga FWIW I’ve observed this on v3 branches too. It’s not solely a v2 phenomenon.

[rdmark]

Reported 9 years ago on the mailing lists: https://sourceforge.net/p/netatalk/mailman/message/32583063/

I agree with Ralph that it looks like an automake bug.

@rwb196884 Are you by any chance doing this on an RPi or other ARM based device?

[rwb196884]

Debian 12 on an i5.

I have a netatalk service -- to which nothing can connect -- and no afpd.

Is this right?

# git branch
* branch-netatalk-2-3
  main

And I guess I'll need to remove netatalk?

[rdmark]

Just to confirm: do you have a particular reason for running netatalk v2 over netatalk v3?

[rwb196884]

My main Macs are an SE/30 and an LCIII. It's nicer if they can see the server without having to type the IP address.
Although getting either to work on Debian 12 would be better than nothing.

[rdmark]

Fair enough, then 2.x is the better choice.

First, you need to stop the existing netatalk process, and uninstall it cleanly. Do you remember how you installed it? Via apt?

Try stopping the process with:

sudo systemctl stop netatalk

Confirm it is stopped:

systemctl status netatalk

Attempt to uninstall with apt:

sudo apt remove netatalk

[rwb196884]

I don't remember how I installed it -- netatalk was removed from Debian 12.
Will

# systemctl stop netatalk
# systemctl disable netatalk

suffice?
(It's at /usr/local/sbin/netatalk and the version is 3.1.99dev.)

[rdmark]

This means that you compiled it from source. If you still have the netatalk source code that you used, you can run sudo make uninstall from the root of the source code directory.

It’s cleaner if you uninstall one version before installing another one.

[rwb196884]

Switched branch to main and run make uninstall has removed /usr/local/sbin/netatalk but the systemd service is still there and running -- after systemctl daemon-reload. And it even stops and restarts!

Seems to have left a symlink in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants to a file that doesn't exist

netatalk.service -> /lib/systemd/system/netatalk.service

but even after removing it systemctl start netatalk works and shows as active (exited).

I found /etc/init.d/netatalk
which contains

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DESC="Netatalk"
NAME=netatalk
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/netatalk
PIDFILE=/var/run/lock/netatalk

but /usr/sbin/netatalk doesn't exist! But systemctl start netatalk works!
I can't work out why systemd thinks that netatalk still exists and goodness knows what systemctl start netatalk is doing!

[rdmark]

/etc/init.d/netatalk is a traditional sysv style init script, and nothing to do with systemd. It’s odd that you have both on your system. There seems to be residue from multiple installations of netatalk with different prefixes and configurations...

systemctl disable netatalk should clean up all the symlinks and crap that systemd manages. There is no need to manually remove those. Doing so will only confuse systemd.

You can do a global search on the file system for “netatalk” to see if there are other binaries floating around.

And, use ps aux to inspect what processes are actually running. Do you see netatalk running after a reboot, for instance?

[rdmark]

Let me convert this to a Discussion since it a troubleshooting thread rather than a bug.