Success report + thank you: Time Capsule A1409 (syAP 113, NetBSD 4 LE) working with macOS 27 via the Python CLI

[amaralma]

Just wanted to say thank you and report a working install on an older device, since Gen 1-4 seems less tested than the A1470.

Hardware / software

• AirPort Time Capsule A1409, 3 TB disk
• Detected by tcapsule as: NetBSD 4.0_STABLE (evbarm, little-endian), syAP 113
• Host: MacBook (M3), macOS 27
• TimeCapsuleSMB v3.1.0, Python CLI path (bootstrap → configure → deploy → doctor)

Result

• doctor passes end to end: smbd 4.25.0rc2 listening on 445 (IPv4 + IPv6), Bonjour _smb._tcp and _adisk._tcp advertised, no _afpovertcp._tcp, full SMB create/read/rename/copy/delete cycle OK.
• Time Machine picked the disk up automatically; tmutil destinationinfo shows an smb:// URL and mount shows smbfs. First full backup is running right now over the existing share ("Disco AirPort 3Tb"), no wipe needed.
• On the device: fstat shows the project's smbd (pid 547) owning *:445 on both stacks and a child process serving the Mac's session; Apple's afpserver is still bound to 548 but unadvertised and unused.

Notes that may help other Gen 1-4 users

• The Time Capsule had no WAN uplink during setup (Mac joined its Wi-Fi directly), so flash --patch stopped at "failed to download Apple firmware catalog" (DNS). deploy and activate work fine offline; the patch just needs internet for the Apple template. I'm running activate after reboots until I can patch with an uplink.
• Read-only flash reported Active bank: unknown / multiple_candidates with both banks valid (acp_match=True), so I expect to need --force for the patch.
• doctor once reported FAIL NBNS query ... returned an invalid response; it passed on the previous run and everything else was green, so it looked transient.
• Manual SSH from current macOS needs the legacy options from core/config.py (HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa, KexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group14-sha1). The device has no grep/netstat; fstat + sed do the job.
• Minor: the CLI labels syAP 113 as "Time Capsule 3rd generation"; my unit is the A1409, which Apple lists as 4th generation. Same NetBSD 4 LE path either way, just flagging the label.

Great work. This saved a perfectly good device from the recycling bin.

[jamesyc]

Glad it worked for you!

The doctor once reported FAIL NBNS query ... error was fixed in v3.1.2

Minor: the CLI labels syAP 113 as "Time Capsule 3rd generation"; my unit is the A1409, which Apple lists as 4th generation. Same NetBSD 4 LE path either way, just flagging the label.

That's really weird it was detected as a syAP 113. Are you sure you have a A1409?

Generation	Model number	syAP	Model identifier
1st	A1254	106	TimeCapsule6,106
2nd	A1302	109	TimeCapsule6,109
3rd	A1355	113	TimeCapsule6,113
4th	A1409	116	TimeCapsule6,116
5th	A1470	119	TimeCapsule8,119