AFP.CONF(5)

Name

afp.conf - Netatalk configuration file

Synopsis

The afp.conf file is the configuration file for the Netatalk AFP file server.

All AFP-specific configurations and AFP volume definitions are done via this file.

File Format

The file consists of sections and parameters. A section begins with the name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next section begins. Sections contain parameters of the form:

    option = value

The file is line-based - that is, each newline-terminated line represents either a comment, a section name or a parameter.

Parameter names are case sensitive, while section names are not.

Only the first equals sign in a parameter is significant. Whitespace before or after the first equals sign is discarded. Leading, trailing and internal whitespace in section and parameter names is irrelevant. Leading and trailing whitespace in a parameter value is discarded. Internal whitespace within a parameter value is retained verbatim.

Any line beginning with a semicolon (“;”) or a hash (“#”) character is ignored, as are lines containing only whitespace.

Any line ending in a \ (backslash) is continued on the next line in the customary UNIX fashion.

The values following the equals sign in parameters are all either a string (no quotes needed) or a boolean, which may be given as yes/no, 1/0 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, but is preserved in string values. Some options such as file perm take numeric values.

Section Descriptions

Each section in the configuration file (except for the [Global] section) describes a shared resource (known as a “volume”). The parameters within the section define the volume attributes and options.

There are two special sections, [Global] and [Homes], which are described under special sections. The following notes apply to ordinary section descriptions.

A volume consists of a directory to which access is being given plus a description of the access rights which are granted to the user of the service. For volumes the path option must specify the directory to share.

The name of the volume is defined via the volume name option. When absent, the volume name is the name of the section, expressed in lowercase.

Any volume section without path option is considered a vol preset which can be selected in other volume sections via the vol preset option and constitutes defaults for the volume. For any option specified both in a preset and in a volume section the volume section setting completely substitutes the preset option.

The access rights granted by the server are masked by the access rights granted to the specified or guest UNIX user by the host system. The server does not grant more access than the host system grants.

The following sample section defines an AFP volume. The user has full access to the path /foo/bar. The share is accessed via the share name Baz:

    [baz]
        volume name = Baz
        path = /foo/bar

Special Sections

  The [Global] section

Parameters in this section apply to the server as a whole. Parameters denoted by a (G) below are must be set in this section.

  The [Homes] section

This section enable sharing of the UNIX server user home directories. The one mandatory option is basedir regex. It should be set to a path which matches the parent directory of the user homes.

Specifying the optional path parameter makes it so that only the subdirectory path is shared, rather than the entire home directory. The following example illustrates this. Given all user home directories are stored under /home:

    [Homes]
        path = afp-data
        basedir regex = /home

For a user john this results in an AFP home volume with a path of /home/john/afp-data.

If basedir regex contains symlink, set the canonicalized absolute path. When /home links to /usr/home:

    [Homes]
        basedir regex = /usr/home

The optional parameter home name can be used to change the Homes volume name, which is $u’s home by default. See below for more information on VARIABLE SUBSTITUTIONS.

    [Homes]
        home name = The home of $u
        basedir regex = /home

For the same user john this results in an AFP home volume called The home of john.

Any parameter denoted by a (H) below can be used in the Homes section.

Parameters

Parameters define the specific attributes of sections.

Some parameters are specific to the [Global] section (e.g., log type). All others are permissible only in volume sections. The letter G in parentheses indicates that a parameter is specific to the [Global] section. The letter V indicates that a parameter can be specified in a volume specific section.

Variable Substitutions

You can use variables in volume names. The use of variables in paths is limited to $u.

1.  if you specify an unknown variable, it will not get converted.

2.  if you specify a known variable, but that variable doesn’t have a value, it will get ignored.

The variables which can be used for substitutions are:

    $b

        basename

    $c

        client’s ip address

    $d

        volume pathname on server

    $f

        full name (contents of the gecos field in the passwd file)

    $g

        group name

    $h

        hostname

    $i

        client’s ip, without port

    $s

        server name (this can be the hostname)

    $u

        user name (if guest, it is the user that guest is running as)

    $v

        volume name

    $$

        prints dollar sign ($)

Explanation of Global Parameters

  Authentication Options

ad domain = domain (G)

    Append @DOMAIN to username when authenticating. Useful in Active Directory environments that otherwise would require the user to enter the full user@domain string.

admin group = group (G)

    Allows users of a certain group to be seen as the superuser when they log in. This option is disabled by default.

force user = user (G)

    This specifies a UNIX user name that will be assigned as the default user for all users connecting to this server. This is useful for sharing files. You should also use it carefully as using it incorrectly can cause security problems.

force group = group (G)

    This specifies a UNIX group name that will be assigned as the default primary group for all users connecting to this server.

guest account = name (G)

    Specifies the user that guests should use (default is nobody). The name must be a valid user on the host system.

k5 keytab = path (G); k5 service = service (G); k5 realm = realm (G)

    These are required if the server supports the Kerberos 5 authentication UAM.

nt domain = domain (G); nt separator = SEPARATOR (G)

    Use for e.g. winbind authentication, prepends both strings before the username from login and then tries to authenticate with the result through the available and active UAM authentication modules.

uam list = uam list (default: uams_dhx2.so) (G)

    Space or comma separated list of User Authentication Methods.

    Available UAMs are:

    uams_dhx2.so

        (uams_dhx2_pam.so or uams_dhx2_passwd.so) Allow Diffie-Hellman eXchange 2 (DHX2) for authentication.

    uams_srp.so

        Allow SRP (“Secure Remote Password”) for authentication. Requires a separate file containing the SRP salts and verifiers, either the default afppasswd.srp file or the one specified via “srp passwd file”. See afppasswd(1) for details.

    uam_gss.so

        Allow Kerberos V for authentication. Requires Kerberos support to be enabled at compile time and a properly configured Kerberos environment.

    uams_guest.so

        Allows guest logins. (INSECURE!)

    uams_clrtxt.so

        (uams_pam.so or uams_passwd.so) Allow logins with passwords transmitted in the clear. Compatible with Mac OS 9 and earlier. (INSECURE!)

    uams_randnum.so

        Allows Random Number and Two-Way Random Number Exchange for authentication (requires a separate file containing the passwords, either the default afppasswd file or the one specified via “passwd file”). See afppasswd(1) for details. (INSECURE!)

    uams_dhx.so

        (uams_dhx_pam.so or uams_dhx_passwd.so) Allow Diffie-Hellman eXchange (DHX) for authentication. (INSECURE!)

uam path = path (G)

    Sets the default path for UAMs for this server.

valid shellcheck = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Whether to check if the user’s login shell is valid (i.e. listed in /etc/shells). If the user’s shell is not valid, authentication will fail. This is a security feature to prevent users with nologin shells from logging in. Disable this option to allow users with nologin shells to log in.

  Charset Options

With OS X Apple introduced the AFP3 protocol. One of the big changes was, that AFP3 uses Unicode names encoded as Decomposed UTF-8 (UTF8-MAC). Previous AFP/OS versions used charsets like MacRoman, MacCentralEurope, etc.

To be able to serve AFP3 and older clients at the same time, afpd needs to be able to convert between UTF-8 and Mac charsets. Even OS X clients partly still rely on the mac charset. As there’s no way, afpd can detect the codepage a pre AFP3 client uses, you have to specify it using the mac charset option. The default is MacRoman, which should be fine for most western users.

As afpd needs to interact with UNIX operating system as well, it needs to be able to convert from UTF8-MAC / Mac charset to the UNIX charset. By default afpd uses UTF8. You can set the UNIX charset using the unix charset option. If you’re using extended characters in the configuration files for afpd, make sure your terminal matches the unix charset.

mac charset = charset (G)/(V)

    Specifies the Mac clients charset, e.g. MAC_ROMAN. This is used to convert strings and filenames to the clients codepage for OS9 and Classic, i.e. for authentication and AFP messages (SIGUSR2 messaging). This will also be the default for the volumes mac charset. Defaults to MAC_ROMAN.

unix charset = charset (G)

    Specifies the servers unix charset, e.g. ISO-8859-15 or EUC-JP. This is used to convert strings to/from the systems locale, e.g. for authentication, server messages and volume names. If LOCALE is set, the systems locale is used. Defaults to UTF8.

vol charset = charset (G)/(V)

    Specifies the encoding of the volumes filesystem. By default, it is the same as unix charset.

    NOTE: It is highly recommended to stick to the default UTF-8 encoding.

  Password Options

passwd file = path (G)

    Sets the path to the Randnum UAM password file for this server.

passwd minlen = number (G)

    Sets the minimum password length, if supported by the UAM

save password = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Enables or disables the ability of clients to save passwords locally. Setting this option to no will send this hint to clients, but it is up to the client to honor it.

set password = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Enables or disables the ability of clients to change their passwords. Setting this option to yes will allow clients to change their passwords if the UAM in use supports this feature.

srp passwd file = path (G)

    Sets the path to the SRP UAM verifier file for this server.

  Network Options

advertise ssh = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Allows old Mac OS X clients (10.3.3-10.4) to automatically establish a tunneled AFP connection through SSH. If this option is set, the server’s answers to client’s FPGetSrvrInfo requests contain an additional entry. It depends on both client’s settings and a correctly configured and running sshd(8) on the server to let things work.

    NOTE: Setting this option is not recommended since globally encrypting AFP connections via SSH will increase the server’s load significantly. On the other hand, Apple’s client side implementation of this feature in Mac OS X versions prior to 10.3.4 contained a security flaw.

afp interfaces = name [name …] (G)

    Specifies the network interfaces that the server should listen on. The default is to advertise the first IP address of the system, while listening for any incoming request.

    NOTE: Do not use at the same time as the afp listen option.

afp listen = ip address[:port] [ip address[:port] …] (G)

    Specifies the IP address that the server should advertise and listens to. The default is advertise the first IP address of the system, but to listen for any incoming request. The network address may be specified either in dotted-decimal format for IPv4 or in hexadecimal format for IPv6.

    IPv6 address + port combination must use URL the format using square brackets [IPv6]:port

    NOTE: Do not use at the same time as the afp interfaces option.

afp port = port number (G)

    Allows a different TCP port to be used for AFP. The default is 548. Also sets the default port applied when none specified in an afp listen option.

afp read locks = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Whether to apply locks to the byte region read in FPRead calls. The AFP spec mandates this, but it’s not really in line with UNIX semantics and is a performance hog.

disconnect time = number (G)

    Keep disconnected AFP sessions for number hours before dropping them. Default is 24 hours.

dsireadbuf = number (G)

    Scale factor that determines the size of the DSI/TCP readahead buffer, default is 12. This is multiplies with the DSI server quantum (default 1MiB) to give the size of the buffer. Increasing this value might increase throughput in fast local networks for volume to volume copies.

    NOTE: This buffer is allocated per afpd child process, so specifying large values will eat up large amount of memory (buffer size * number of clients).

fqdn = name[:port] (G)

    Specifies a fully-qualified domain name, with an optional port. This is discarded if the server cannot resolve it. This option is not honored by AppleShare clients <= 3.8.3. This option is disabled by default. Use with caution as this will involve a second name resolution step on the client side. Also note that afpd will advertise this name:port combination but not automatically listen to it.

hostname = name (G)

    Use this instead of the result from calling hostname for determining which IP address to advertise, therefore the hostname is resolved to an IP which is the advertised. This is NOT used for listening and can be overridden by afp listen.

max connections = number (G)

    Sets the maximum number of clients that can simultaneously connect to the server (default is 200).

server quantum = number (G)

    This specifies the DSI server quantum. The default value is 0x100000 (1 MiB). The maximum value is 0xFFFFFFFF, the minimum is 32000. If you specify a value that is out of range, the default value will be set. Do not change this value unless you’re absolutely sure, what you’re doing

sleep time = number (G)

    Keep sleeping AFP sessions for number hours before disconnecting clients in sleep mode. Default is 10 hours.

tcprcvbuf = number (G)

    Try to set TCP receive buffer using setsockopt(). Often OSes impose restrictions on the applications ability to set this value.

tcpsndbuf = number (G)

    Try to set TCP send buffer using setsockopt(). Often OSes impose restrictions on the applications ability to set this value.

recvfile = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Whether to use splice() on Linux for receiving data.

splice size = number (default: 64k) (G)

    Maximum number of bytes spliced.

use sendfile = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Whether to use sendfile syscall for sending file data to clients.

zeroconf = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Whether to use automatic Zeroconf service registration if Avahi or mDNSResponder were compiled in.

  CNID Database Backend Options

Global configurations specific to the CNID database backends, which controls how the database is stored and accessed.

cnid listen = host[:port] (G)

    Specifies the hostname or IP address and port that the CNID server should listen on. The host must resolve to a local address that cnid_metad can bind. This should match the address and port of the cnid server option for most deployments. The default is localhost:4700. When only a hostname or IP address is specified, the default port 4700 is used.

cnid mysql host = MySQL server address (G)

    Name or address of a MySQL server for use with the mysql CNID backend.

    On Unix systems, setting this to localhost (or leaving it unset) causes the MySQL client library to prefer Unix socket connections, which offers better performance for a local database. Setting it to 127.0.0.1 forces a TCP connection to the loopback interface.

cnid mysql user = MySQL user (G)

    MySQL user for authentication with the server.

cnid mysql pw = password (G)

    Password for MySQL server.

cnid mysql db = database name (G)

    Name of the database to use for CNID storage. If the database does not exist, Netatalk will attempt to create it automatically (requires the specified user to have CREATE DATABASE privileges).

cnid scheme = dbd | mysql | sqlite (G)/(V)

    Set the CNID backend to be used for the volumes. Not all backends may be available with your netatalk installation. Run afpd -v to see a list of available backends, as well as which one is the default.

    dbd: uses Berkeley DB, with database reads and writes managed through the cnid_dbd daemon. It is deprecated and not recommended for new deployments.

    mysql: connects to a MySQL (or MariaDB) database instance that has been provisioned for use with Netatalk. Requires datbase administration, giving you full control over how the CNID data is stored.

    sqlite: uses the SQLite embedded database library. It is performant and lean, requiring no external database or daemon.

cnid server = host[:port] (G)/(V)

    Specifies the hostname or IP address and port of a cnid_metad server, required for the CNID dbd backend. This should match the address and port of the cnid listen option for most deployments. Defaults to localhost:4700. When only a hostname or IP address is specified, the default port 4700 is used.

    Hostnames and IPv4 addresses are accepted. Hostnames may resolve to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.

vol dbpath = path (G)/(V)

    Sets the path where the database information will be stored. You have to specify a writable location, even if the volume is read only.

vol dbnest = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Setting this option to true brings back Netatalk 2 behaviour of storing the CNID database in a folder called .AppleDB inside the volume root of each share.

  Directory Cache Tuning

dircache size = number (G)

    Maximum entries in the directory cache. Stores directories and optionally files. Minimum: 1024 (1K). Default: 65536 (64K). Maximum: 1048576 (1M). Higher values improve hit ratios but use more memory.

dircache validation freq = number (G)

    Directory cache validation frequency for external change detection. Value of 1 means validate every access (default for backward compatibility), higher values validate less frequently. If Netatalk is the only process accessing the volume you can safely set a value of 100 for maximum performance.

dircache mode = lru | arc (default: lru) (G)

    Cache replacement algorithm. lru = Least Recently Used (stable, memory-efficient). arc = Adaptive Replacement Cache (self-tuning, 10-50% better hit ratios, 2× better on sequential scans). ARC uses approximately 2× memory (~100% overhead) due to ghost entries: evicted entries tracked for learning, enabling ARC to adapt. Example: 64K cache uses ~24 MB (ARC) vs ~12 MB (LRU).

    Recommendation: Use arc for servers with 8GB+ RAM. Use lru for constrained systems. Increase dircache size (max entries) for best results.

dircache rfork budget = number (default: 0) (G)

    Total memory budget in KB for caching resource fork data in the directory cache. When set to 0 (the default), resource fork caching is disabled. Resource fork caching stores small resource fork contents in memory to avoid repeated disk reads during FPGetFileDirParams and FPEnumerate operations.

    Maximum: 10485760 (10 GB in KB) total.

dircache rfork maxsize = number (default: 1024) (G)

    Maximum size in KB of a single resource fork entry that will be cached. Resource forks larger than this value will not be cached even if the total budget has not been exhausted.

    Maximum: 10240 (10 MB in KB) per entry.

Note: See Configuration chapter in the manual for more information

  Miscellaneous Options

afpstats = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Whether to provide AFP runtime statistics (connected users, open volumes) via a Unix socket.

afpstats group = group (G)

    Sets the group owner of the afpstats Unix socket. The socket is created with mode 0660, so only root and members of this group can access runtime statistics. If unset, the socket keeps the group assigned by the operating system when afpd creates it.

close vol = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Whether to close volumes possibly opened by clients when they’re removed from the configuration and the configuration is reloaded.

extmap file = path (G)

    Sets the path to the file which defines file extension type/creator mappings.

force xattr with sticky bit = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)/(V)

    Writing metadata xattr on directories with the sticky bit set may fail even though we may have write access to a directory, because if the sticky bit is set only the owner is allowed to write xattrs.

    By enabling this option Netatalk will write the metadata xattr as root.

ignored attributes = all | nowrite | nodelete | norename (G)/(V)

    Specify a set of file and directory attributes that shall be ignored by the server, all includes all the other options.

    In OS X when the Finder sets a lock on a file/directory or you set the BSD uchg flag in the Terminal, all three attributes are used. Thus in order to ignore the Finder lock/BSD uchg flag, add set ignored attributes = all.

mimic model = model (G)

    Specifies a custom icon for the mounted AFP volume on macOS (Mac OS X) clients. Default is to let macOS choose. Requires netatalk to be built with Zeroconf. Examples:

    •   Laptop

    •   RackMount

    •   Tower

    A complete set of supported model codes by a macOS client can be found by inspecting system properties files, such as /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Info.plist on macOS 15 Sequoia.

server name = name (G)

    Specifies a human-readable name that uniquely describes the AFP server. Defaults to the value of hostname up until the first period. When netatalk is built with Zeroconf support, this is also registered as the service name and advertised as UTF-8, up to 63 octets (bytes) in length.

signature = STRING (G)

    Specify a server signature. The maximum length is 16 characters. This option is useful for clustered environments, to provide fault isolation etc. By default, afpd generates a signature and saves it to a file called afp_signature.conf automatically (based on random numbers). See also asip-status(1).

solaris share reservations = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Use share reservations on Solaris. Solaris CIFS server uses this too, so this makes a lock coherent multi protocol server.

veto message = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Send optional AFP messages for vetoed files. Then whenever a client tries to access any file or directory with a vetoed name, it will be sent an AFP message indicating the name and the directory.

volnamelen = number (G)

    Max length of UTF8-MAC volume name for Mac OS X. Note that Hangul is especially sensitive to this.

    73: limit of Mac OS X 10.1
    80: limit of Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 (default)
    255: limit of recent Mac OS X

    Mac OS 9 and earlier are not influenced by this, because Maccharset volume name is always limited to 27 bytes.

vol preset = name (G)/(V)

    Use section name as option preset for all volumes (when set in the [Global] section) or for one volume (when set in that volume’s section).

  Search Options

Configure Netatalk’s file search capabilities, covering Spotlight and Catalog Search.

dbus daemon = path (G)

    Sets the path to dbus-daemon binary used to launch a private D-Bus for the LocalSearch backend. Can be used when the compile-time default path does not match the runtime environment.

    If support is compiled into Netatalk, you may alternatively use the localsearch backend which enables more advanced search capabilities, including full text search and file metadata search.

search db = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Use fast CNID database namesearch instead of slow recursive filesystem search for Classic Mac OS - Mac OS X 10.3 clients.

    NOTE: Relies on a consistent CNID database for accurate search results. Interacting with the AFP volume with other file sharing protocols, or doing local filesystem access on the host without using nad(1) will lead to an inaccurate CNID database that has to be repaired with dbd(1).

sparql results limit = NUMBER (default: UNLIMITED) (G)

    Impose a limit on the number of results queried from Tracker or LocalSearch via SPARQL queries.

    The xapian backend also uses this value as its per-query result limit, despite the historical option name. When set to 0, LocalSearch queries are unlimited, while the xapian backend applies an internal safety cap of 10000 candidate results. Set a larger nonzero value to raise the xapian cap. The cnid backend does not use this option and is limited by its fixed CNID search reply cap.

spotlight = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)/(V)

    Whether to enable Spotlight-compatible searches. As a global option, this sets the default for volumes. As a volume option, it overrides the global default for that volume.

    A volume is searchable only when its effective spotlight setting is enabled and a supported spotlight backend is available for that volume.

spotlight attributes = COMMA SEPARATED STRING (default: EMPTY) (G)

    A list of Spotlight query attributes accepted by the localsearch backend. By default all attributes known to the LocalSearch SPARQL mapper can be searched; passing a string limits searchable attributes to elements of the string. Example:

    spotlight attributes = *,kMDItemTextContent

    This option does not affect the cnid or xapian backends.

spotlight backend = backend (default: cnid) (G)/(V)

    Search backend used by the Spotlight feature.

    Depending on your Netatalk configuration, the available backends may include: cnid, localsearch, xapian.

    Run netatalk -v to see which backends are available in your installation.

    NOTE: The xapian backend is considered EXPERIMENTAL and is not recommended for production use at this time.

spotlight expr = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Whether the localsearch backend allows Spotlight logic expressions when translating Spotlight RAW queries to SPARQL.

    This option does not affect the cnid or xapian backends.

  Logging Options

Control what kinds of messages are logged, and where they are logged.

log file = logfile (G)

    Write logs to logfile on the file system. If not specified, Netatalk logs to the syslog daemon facility.

log level = type:level [type:level …]; log level = type:level,[type:level, …] (G)

    Space or comma separated list of one or more log type and log level pairs.

    The default log level and severity is default:note

    For each pair, the log level specifies the minimum severity of messages of the given log type that will be logged. Only messages of the specified log type with severity equal to or higher than the specified log level will be logged, while messages of that log type with lower severity will be ignored.

    The default log type is a special log type that applies to all messages. If no log level is specified for default, only log types with explicitly specified log levels will be logged, and all other log types will be ignored.

    For example, if you specify log level = default:warn, then all messages with severity warn or higher (i.e. warn, error, severe) will be logged, and anything below warn (note, info, debug etc.) will be ignored.

    By chaining multiple log type and log level pairs are together, you get fine-grained control over which messages are logged based on their type and severity.

    Available logtypes: default, logger, cnid, afpdaemon, dsi, atalkdaemon, papdaemon, uams, fce, ad, spotlight

    Available loglevels (by falling order of severity): severe, error, warn, note, info, debug, debug6, debug7, debug8, debug9, maxdebug

    NOTE: Both logtype and loglevels are case insensitive.

log microseconds = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (G)

    Log timestamps with accuracy down to microseconds. If disabled, the timestamps record only whole seconds. Only takes effect when used in tandem with the log file option.

  Filesystem Change Events (FCE)

Netatalk includes a nifty filesystem change event mechanism where afpd processes notify interested listeners about certain filesystem event by UDP network datagrams.

The following FCE events are defined:

•   file modification (fmod)

•   file deletion (fdel)

•   directory deletion (ddel)

•   file creation (fcre)

•   directory creation (dcre)

•   file move or rename (fmov)

•   directory move or rename (dmov)

•   login (login)

•   logout (logout)

fce listener = host[:port] (G)

    Enables sending FCE events to the specified host, default port is 12250 if not specified. Specifying multiple listeners is done by having this option once for each of them.

fce version = 1 | 2 (G)

    FCE protocol version, default is 1. You need version 2 for the fmov, dmov, login or logout events.

fce events = fmod,fdel,ddel,fcre,dcre,fmov,dmov,login,logout (G)

    Specifies which FCE events are active, default is fmod,fdel,ddel,fcre,dcre.

fce coalesce = all | delete | create (G)

    Coalesce FCE events.

fce holdfmod = seconds (G)

    This determines the time delay in seconds which is always waited if another file modification for the same file is done by a client before sending an FCE file modification event (fmod). For example saving a file in Photoshop would generate multiple events by itself because the application is opening, modifying and closing a file multiple times for every “save”. Default: 60 seconds.

fce sendwait = milliseconds (G)

    Defines a delay in milliseconds between the emission of each FCE event. Use this if you are experiencing lost FCE events when creating or deleting a very large number of files at once. The deluge of events that such an operation triggers can lead to UDP buffer overflow and subsequently to packet loss. Has to be a number between 0 and 999. Default: 0 milliseconds.

fce ignore names = NAME[,NAME2,…] (G)

    Comma-delimited list of filenames for which FCE events shall not be generated. Default: .DS_Store

fce ignore directories = PATH[,PATH2,…] (G)

    Comma-delimited list of paths to directories for which FCE events shall not be generated. Has to be an absolute path on the host file system. Must not end with a slash. Default: empty

fce notify script = path (G)

    Script which will be executed for every FCE event. See contrib/scripts/fce_ev_script.sh in the Netatalk source tree for an example script.

  Options for ACL handling

By default, the effective permission of the authenticated user are only mapped to the mentioned UARights permission structure, not the UNIX mode. You can adjust this behaviour with the configuration option map acls:

chmod request = preserve (default) | ignore | simple (G)/(V)

    Advanced permission control that deals with ACLs.

    •   ignore - UNIX chmod() requests are completely ignored, use this option to allow the parent directory’s ACL inheritance full control over new items.

    •   preserve - preserve ZFS ACEs for named users and groups or POSIX ACL group mask

    •   simple - just to a chmod() as requested without any extra steps

map acls = none | rights | mode (G)

    none

        No mapping of ACLs.

    rights

        Effective permissions are mapped to UARights structure. This is the default.

    mode

        ACLs are additionally mapped to the UNIX mode of the filesystem object.

If you want to be able to display ACLs on the client, you must setup both client and server as part on a authentication domain (directory service, e.g. LDAP, Open Directory, Active Directory). The reason is, in OS X ACLs are bound to UUIDs, not just uid’s or gid’s. Therefore Netatalk must be able to map every filesystem uid and gid to a UUID so that it can return the server side ACLs which are bound to UNIX uid and gid mapped to OS X UUIDs.

Netatalk can query a directory server using LDAP queries. Either the directory server already provides an UUID attribute for user and groups (Active Directory, Open Directory) or you reuse an unused attribute (or add a new one) to you directory server (eg OpenLDAP).

The following LDAP options must be configured for Netatalk:

ldap auth method = none | simple (G)

    none

        anonymous LDAP bind

    simple

        simple LDAP bind

ldap auth dn = dn (G)

    Distinguished Name of the user for simple bind.

ldap auth pw = password (G)

    Password for simple bind.

ldap uri = ldap://somehost:1234/ (G)

    Specifies the LDAP URI of the server to connect to. The URI scheme may be ldap, ldapi or ldaps, specifying LDAP over TCP, ICP or TLS respectively (if supported by the LDAP library). This is only needed for explicit ACL support in order to be able to query LDAP for UUIDs.

    You can use afpldaptest(1) to syntactically check your config.

ldap userbase = base dn (G)

    DN of the user container in LDAP.

ldap userscope = scope (G)

    Search scope for user search: base | one | sub

ldap groupbase = base dn (G)

    DN of the group container in LDAP.

ldap groupscope = scope (G)

    Search scope for group search: base | one | sub

ldap uuid attr = dn (G)

    Name of the LDAP attribute with the UUIDs.

    NOTE: this is used both for users and groups.

ldap name attr = dn (G)

    Name of the LDAP attribute with the users short name.

ldap group attr = dn (G)

    Name of the LDAP attribute with the groups short name.

ldap uuid string = STRING (G)

    Format of the uuid string in the directory. A series of x and -, where every x denotes a value 0-9a-f and every - is a separator.

    Default: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

ldap uuid encoding = string (default) | ms-guid (G)

    Format of the UUID of the LDAP attribute, allows usage of the binary objectGUID fields from Active Directory. If left unspecified, string is the default, which passes through the ASCII UUID returned by most other LDAP stores. If set to ms-guid, the internal UUID representation is converted to and from the binary format used in the objectGUID attribute found on objects in Active Directory when interacting with the server.

    See also the options ldap user filter and ldap group filter.

    string

        UUID is a string, use with e.g. OpenDirectory.

    ms-guid

        Binary objectGUID from Active Directory

ldap user filter = STRING (default: unused) (G)

    Optional LDAP filter that matches user objects. This is necessary for Active Directory environments where users and groups are stored in the same directory subtree.

    Recommended setting for Active Directory: objectClass=user.

ldap group filter = STRING (default: unused) (G)

    Optional LDAP filter that matches group objects. This is necessary for Active Directory environments where users and groups are stored in the same directory subtree.

    Recommended setting for Active Directory: objectClass=group.

  Classic Options

Enable Netatalk features that are only relevant for Classic Mac OS or Apple II clients. See also the Charset options elsewhere in this manual.

appletalk = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    Enables support for AFP-over-AppleTalk. This option requires that your operating system supports the AppleTalk networking protocol, and that Netatalk was built with AppleTalk support.

ddp address = ddp address (G)

    Specifies the DDP address of the server. The default is to auto-assign an address (0.0). This is only useful if you are running AppleTalk on more than one interface.

ddp zone = ddp zone (G)

    Specifies the AppleTalk zone to register the server in. The default is to register the server in the default zone of the last interface configured by the system.

legacy icon = icon (G)/(V)

    Sets the shared volume icon displayed in the Finder in Classic Mac OS. If a custom icon is already associated with the volume, this option is ignored. Available icon styles:

    •   daemon

    •   declogo

    •   fileserver

    •   globe

    •   nas

    •   sdcard

    •   sunlogo

    •   viking

legacy volume size = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Limit disk size reporting to 2GB for legacy clients. This can be used for older Macintoshes running System 7.1 or earlier and using newer AppleShare clients.

login message = message (G)/(V)

    Sets a message to be displayed when Classic Mac OS clients log on to the server. The message should be in unix charset. Extended characters are allowed.

prodos = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Enable ProDOS support. This option should only be enabled for volumes you expect to netboot an Apple II from. In addition to setting the boot flag on the volume, it restricts the volume free space reported to the client to 32MB.

  Debug Parameters

These options are useful for debugging only. Do NOT enable them in production environments!

tickleval = number (G)

    Sets the tickle timeout interval (in seconds). Defaults to 30.

timeout = number (G)

    Specify the number of tickles to send before timing out a connection. The default is 4, therefore a connection will timeout after 2 minutes.

client polling = BOOLEAN (default: no) (G)

    With this option enabled, afpd won’t advertise that it is capable of server notifications, so that connected clients poll the server every 10 seconds to detect changes in opened server windows.

Explanation of Volume Parameters

  Home Section Parameters

Special parameters that only apply to the home volume.

basedir regex = regex (H)

    Regular expression which matches the parent directory of the user homes. If basedir regex contains symlink, you must set the canonicalized absolute path. In the simple case this is just a path i.e. basedir regex = /home

home name = name (H)

    AFP user home volume name. The default is $u’s home. The name must contain “$u”.

  Volume Sections Parameters

Each volume should at least define path and volume name.

path = path (V)

    The path name must be a fully qualified path name.

volume name = STRING (default: section name in lowercase) (V)

    The volume name option specifies the name of the shared AFP volume. When not set, this defaults to the name of the ini file section where the volume is defined, converted to lowercase.

    No two volumes may have the same name. The volume name cannot contain the ‘:’ character. The volume name is mangled if it is very long. Mac charset volume name is limited to 27 characters. UTF8-MAC volume name is limited to volnamelen parameter.

vol size limit = size in MiB (V)

    Useful for Time Machine: limits the reported volume size, thus preventing Time Machine from using the whole real disk space for backup. Example: “vol size limit = 1000” would limit the reported disk space to 1 GB.

    IMPORTANT: This is an approximated calculation taking into account the contents of Time Machine sparsebundle images. Therefore you MUST NOT use this volume to store other content when using this option, because it would NOT be accounted for. The calculation works by reading the band size from the Info.plist XML file of the sparsebundle, reading the bands/ directory counting the number of band files, and then multiplying one with the other.

valid users = user / @group (V)

    The allow option allows the users and groups that access a share to be specified. Users and groups are specified, delimited by spaces or commas. Groups are designated by a @ prefix. Example:

    valid users = user @group

invalid users = user / @group (V)

    The deny option specifies users and groups who are not allowed access to the share. It follows the same format as the “valid users” option.

hosts allow = IP host address/IP netmask bits [ … ] (V)

    Only listed hosts and networks are allowed, all others are rejected. The network address may be specified either in dotted-decimal format for IPv4 or in hexadecimal format for IPv6.

    Example: hosts allow = 10.1.0.0/16 10.2.1.100 2001:0db8:1234::/48

hosts deny = IP host address/IP netmask bits [ … ] (V)

    Listed hosts and nets are rejected, all others are allowed.

    Example: hosts deny = 192.168.100/24 10.1.1.1 2001:db8::1428:57ab

ea = sys | samba | ad | none (default: auto detect) (V)

    Specify how Extended Attributes and Mac OS Resource Forks are stored.

    By default, we attempt to enable sys with a fallback to none. For the auto detection to work, the volume needs to be writable because we attempt to set an EA on the shared directory itself. For read-only volumes, set this option explicitly.

    sys

        Use filesystem Extended Attributes.

    samba

        Use filesystem Extended Attributes, but append a 0 byte to each xattr in order to be compatible with Samba’s vfs_streams_xattr.

    ad

        Use AppleDouble v2 metadata stored as files in .AppleDouble directories. This should only be used when the host’s filesystem does not support Extended Attributes.

    none

        No Extended Attributes support.

    WARNING: The samba option should not be used on a volume that was previously set to sys. This may lead to data loss (client copy between shares to convert).

mac charset = charset (V)

    Specifies the Mac client charset for this Volume, e.g. MAC_ROMAN, MAC_CYRILLIC. If not specified the global setting is applied. This setting is only required if you need volumes, where the Mac charset differs from the one globally set in the [Global] section.

casefold = option (V)

    The casefold option handles, if the case of filenames should be changed. The available options are:

    tolower - Lowercases names in both directions.

    toupper - Uppercases names in both directions.

    xlatelower - Client sees lowercase, server sees uppercase.

    xlateupper - Client sees uppercase, server sees lowercase.

password = password (V)

    This option allows you to set a volume password, which can be a maximum of 8 characters long (using ASCII strongly recommended at the time of this writing).

file perm = mode (V); directory perm = mode (V)

    Add(or) with the client requested permissions: file perm is for files only, directory perm is for directories only. Don’t use with “unix priv = no”.

    Example: Volume for a collaborative workgroup

    file perm = 0660
    directory perm = 0770

umask = mode (V)

    Set perm mask. Don’t use with “unix priv = no”.

preexec = command (V)

    Command to be run when the volume is mounted

postexec = command (V)

    Command to be run when the volume is closed

rolist = users/groups (V)

    Allows certain users and groups to have read-only access to a share. This follows the allow option format.

rwlist = users/groups (V)

    Allows certain users and groups to have read/write access to a share. This follows the allow option format.

veto files = vetoed names (V)

    Hide files and directories,where the path matches one of the ‘/’ delimited vetoed names. The veto string must always be terminated with a ‘/’, e.g. “veto files = veto1/”, “veto files = veto1/veto2/”.

volume uuid = UUID (V)

    Specify a custom UUID for the volume. The UUID must be in the standard format, e.g. 550E8400-E29B-41D4-A716-446655440000. If not specified, a random UUID is generated for the volume at startup and saved in the file afp_voluuid.conf in the shared state directory.

    In most circumstances, you should not need to set this option, but rather let netatalk manage it for you. One reason to set it manually is when you want to run afpd as a non-privileged user who does not have write access to the shared state directory.

  Volume options

Boolean volume options.

acls = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether to flag volumes as supporting ACLs. If ACL support is compiled in, this is yes by default.

case sensitive = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether to advertise volumes as supporting case-sensitive filenames. If the host filesystem is case-insensitive, set to no.

cnid dev = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether to store the unique device number for each file or directory in the CNID backend. This is used to detect when a file is moved across devices, which allows Netatalk to update the CNID database accordingly.

    When using this option, make sure that the device number of the volume is consistent across reboots, which can be achieved by using persistent device naming (e.g. by UUID) in /etc/fstab or equivalent. Otherwise, the CNID database will get constantly rebuilt on every reboot, which is not ideal.

convert appledouble = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Perform automatic conversion of AppleDouble v2 metadata files to filesystem Extended Attributes dynamically when accessing filesystems from clients.

    This is useful when upgrading from Netatalk v2 to a later version, but incurs a small performance cost for every filesystem access. If you run dbd(1) on the volumes to convert after upgrading Netatalk, you don’t need to enable this option, as the conversion is done by dbd(1) and not on the fly.

delete veto files = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    This option is used when Netatalk is attempting to delete a directory that contains one or more vetoed files or directories (see the veto files option). If this option is set to no (the default) then if a directory contains any non-vetoed files or directories then the directory delete will fail. This is usually what you want.

    If this option is set to yes, then Netatalk will attempt to recursively delete any files and directories within the vetoed directory.

follow symlinks = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    The default setting is false thus symlinks are not followed on the server. This is the same behaviour as Mac OS X’s AFP server. Setting the option to true causes afpd to follow symlinks on the server.

    When a client creates a symlink via AFP, the target is validated: absolute paths, paths containing .. components, relative paths that resolve outside the volume root, and targets on a different filesystem device than the volume are rejected.

    NOTE: This option is security-sensitive, and should only be enabled if you understand the security implications of allowing clients to follow symlinks on the server.

invisible dots = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Make dot files invisible.

    WARNING: Enabling this option will lead to unwanted side effects where OS X applications, when saving files to a temporary file starting with a dot first, then renaming the temp file to its final name, result in the saved file being invisible. The only thing this option is useful for is making files that start with a dot invisible on Mac OS 9. It’s completely useless on Mac OS X, as both in Finder and in Terminal files starting with a dot are hidden anyway.

network ids = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether the server support network ids. Setting this to no will result in the client not using ACL AFP functions.

preexec close = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    A non-zero return code from preexec close the volume being immediately, preventing clients to mount/see the volume in question.

read only = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Specifies the share as being read only for all users. Forces ea = sys.

stat vol = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether to stat volume path when enumerating volumes list, useful for automounting or volumes created by a preexec script.

time machine = BOOLEAN (default: no) (V)

    Whether to enable Time Machine support for this volume.

unix priv = BOOLEAN (default: yes) (V)

    Whether to use AFP3 UNIX privileges. This should be set for OS X clients. See also: file perm, directory perm, and umask.

Examples

  Example: Modern Mac clients

This enables Spotlight and AFP stats if Netatalk was built with Spotlight and AFP stats support. The mimic model option is used to make the server look like an Xserve.

The home directory is mounted on /home/{user}/afp-data.

    [Global]
    afpstats = yes
    afpstats group = netatalk
    spotlight = yes
    mimic model = RackMac
    [Home]
    basedir regex = /home
    path = afp-data

  Example: Classic Mac clients

This enables AppleTalk if Netatalk was built with AppleTalk support. The Random Number and ClearTxt authentication modules are used to support older Mac clients. The legacy icon option is used to give the volume a custom icon when mounted on Classic Mac OS clients.

With legacy volume size the reported volume size is limited to 2 GB for very old Macs, while prodos is used to enable Apple II ProDOS boot flags on the volume as well as limiting the reported free space on the volume to 32 MB.

    [Global]
    appletalk = yes
    uam list = uams_dhx.so uams_dhx2.so uams_randnum.so uams_clrtxt.so
    legacy icon = daemon
    [mac]
    volume name = Mac Files
    path = /srv/mac
    legacy volume size = yes
    [apple2]
    volume name = Apple II Files
    path = /srv/apple2
    prodos = yes

See Also

afpd(8), afppasswd(5), afp_signature.conf(5), extmap.conf(5), cnid_metad(8)

Author

Contributors to the Netatalk Project (https://netatalk.io/contributors)