Netatalk comes with a Dockerfile and entry point script for running a containerized AFP server and AppleTalk services.
Out of the box, exactly two users, and two shared volumes are supported in this container. One of the shared volumes is a Time Machine backup volume by default. If you need a different setup, please use the manual configuration option.
Make sure you have Docker Engine installed, then build the netatalk container:
docker build -t netatalk:latest .
Alternatively, pull a pre-built Docker image from Docker Hub.
Once you have the netatalk image on your machine with Docker Engine, run it with docker run
or docker compose
.
When running, expose either port 548 for AFP, or use the host
network driver.
The former option is more secure, but you will have to manually specify the IP address in the client when connecting to the file server.
It is recommended to set up either a bind mount, or a Docker managed volume for persistent storage. Without this, the shared volume be stored in volatile storage that is lost upon container shutdown.
For Docker Compose, you can use the sample docker-compose.yml file that is distributed with this source code.
Below follows a sample docker run
command. Substitute /path/to/share
with an actual path on your file system with appropriate permissions, AFP_USER
and AFP_PASS
with the appropriate user and password, and ATALKD_INTERFACE
with the network interface to use for AppleTalk.
You also need to set the timezone with TZ
to the IANA time zone ID for your location, in order to get the correct time synchronized with the Timelord time server.
docker run --rm \
--network host \
--cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
--volume "/path/to/share:/mnt/afpshare" \
--volume "/path/to/backup:/mnt/afpbackup" \
--volume "/var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus" \
--env AFP_USER= \
--env AFP_PASS= \
--env AFP_GROUP=afpusers \
--env ATALKD_INTERFACE= \
--env TZ= \
--name netatalk netatalk:latest
In order to use Zeroconf service discovery as well as the AppleTalk transport layer, the host
network driver and NET_ADMIN
capabilities are mandatory.
Additionally, we rely on the host's DBUS for Zeroconf, achieved with a bind mount such as /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus
. The left hand side of the bind mount is the host machine, and the right hand side is the container. The host machine path may have to be changed to match the location of DBUS on the host machine.
On certain host OSes, notably Ubuntu: if the Apparmor security policy restricts D-Bus messages, enable the unconfined
security option. See the Docker AppArmor security profiles documentation for further details.
The container is hard coded to output afpd
(the Netatalk file server daemon) logs to the container's stdout, with default log level info
. Logs from the AppleTalk daemons are sent to the syslog.
The CUPS administrative web app is running on port 631 in the container, which is exposed to the host machine by default when using the host
network driver. This is used to configure CUPS compatible printers for printing from an old Mac or Apple IIGS.
You may have to restart papd (or the entire container) after adding a CUPS printer for it to be picked up as an AppleTalk printer.
These are required to set the credentials used to authenticate with the file server.
Variable | Description |
---|---|
AFP_USER |
Primary user of the shared volumes |
AFP_PASS |
Password to authenticate with the primary user |
AFP_GROUP |
Group that owns the shared volume dirs |
Variable | Description |
---|---|
ATALKD_INTERFACE |
The network interface to use for AppleTalk |
TZ |
The timezone to use for the container; must be a IANA time zone ID |
Variable | Description |
---|---|
AFP_UID |
Specify user id of AFP_USER |
AFP_GID |
Specify group id of AFP_GROUP |
AFP_USER2 |
Username for the secondary user |
AFP_PASS2 |
Password for the secondary user |
SERVER_NAME |
The name of the server reported to Zeroconf |
SHARE_NAME |
The name of the primary shared volume |
SHARE2_NAME |
The name of the secondary shared (Time Machine) volume |
AFP_LOGLEVEL |
The verbosity of logs; default is "info" |
INSECURE_AUTH |
When non-zero, enable the "ClearTxt" and "Guest" UAMs |
DISABLE_TIMEMACHINE |
When non-zero, the secondary shared volume is a regular volume |
MANUAL_CONFIG |
When non-zero, enable manual management of config files |