big #netatalk news: we now support SQLite as the database backend for the AFP file server

Why is this big news you ask? Thank you for the great question! For the last two decades (since at least v1.5 in 2002) netatalk has been using Berkeley DB as the backend for managing CNID records. BDB is a great database, but it has been slowly dying ever since Oracle acquired it in 2006. In recent years, it's started getting flagged as obsolete by several OS distributions (Alpine, Debian etc.) so we have a semi-urgent need to find an alternative.

Enter SQLite: A popular, actively developed, and super fast embedded database engine! Just like DBD, it stores it database in a simple file on the file system, no need to juggle a stand-alone database instance with authentication, networking and so on.

So I'm now looking for volunteers to help with beta testing!

See TinkerDifferent for the full story: https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/looking-for-beta-testers-netatalk-and-sqlite.4450/

@MuseumJoe Thanks! It made for a great project to learn Kicad for the first time. Thanks for all you do!

@MuseumJoe Hi! I recently made up a PCB version of your NeitherNet project because I saw you weren’t selling them anymore. What’s your policy on either selling them for the cost of parts & a little labor or even just giving them away to people I know? I did put a URL to your YouTube video on the board silkscreen. I don’t want to distribute anything if you don’t want that.

So it seems that if you run netatalk on Linux you need to be sure your network interface is in promiscuous mode for DDP to work. I've opened a discussion on the Netatalk repo about it including a systemd init that will set promiscuous mode automatically. Note that this may not be desirable in your network so use at your own risk: https://github.com/Netatalk/netatalk/discussions/2033 #MARCHintosh

@nikdoof@social.doofnet.uk @kalleboo @nikdoof@incognitus.net I don't recall seeing anything in the netatalk docs about requiring promiscuous mode. I'm surprised this isn't broken for anyone using netatalk. Or maybe I missed something? Thanks for confirming! This has been a real pain to track down!

Still trying to get netatalk v4 shares to show up in Chooser & just found that running `tcpdump` on the netatalk Linux server magically makes AppleTalk DDP work! Not doing anything else special, just letting `tcpdump` run. When I stop `tcpdump` the netatalk shares disappear from Chooser. I don't get it. #MARCHintosh

@europlus it was not but I just explicitly added the '-dontroute' flag in my atalkd.conf but it didn't make any difference.

@europlus Yep, @acn128 said the same thing. I've adjusted my configs to only use 2600 for the network. I actually commented out all the configs from atalkd.conf & just let it configure itself now - which it's doing as confirmed by nbplkup.

Still not able to see anything in OS 9.2.2 Chooser & System 7 intermittently sees GlobalTalk zones or the netatalk share - not both at the same time. My System 7 (Performa 475) is using BlueSCSI v2 wifi so that being a bit flakey doesn't surprise me. Wired ethernet card is on the way! :)

Current status:

New wrinkle - on the Performa running System 7 - if I leave Chooser open for awhile I'll see all the GlobalTalk zones drop & retro-tools1 (the netatalk box on my network) show up for a short time then revert back to showing me the GlobalTalk zones but NOT retro-tools1. Kind of makes me feel like something is conflicting somewhere but I don't know where. I changed jrouter to only using a single network - 2600 so all devices now show up in that network but that doesn't seem to make much difference. I also commented out EVERYTHING in atalkd.conf so it just automatically configures itself but still no change. Here's a summary of where I'm at:

System 7:
- Can always see the OS 9.2.2 system (PowerMac G4)
- OCCASIONALLY drops GlobalTalk zones & can see retro-tools1 but then reverts to seeing GlobalTalk zones but NOT retro-tools1
- Trawl app sees all devices

OS 9.2.2:
- Shows all GlobalTalk zones & can see devices in other zones but CANNOT see ANYTHING in my SuperK zone ever
- Can connect to retro-tools1 share via IP only (never shows in Chooser)
- Trawl only sees PowerMac G4 & jrouter devices - never sees the Performa 475 or retro-tools1

nbplkup:
- Sees all devices in my SuperK (2600) zone

@acn128 Thanks for this info! I wasn't clear on how those network numbers worked but that makes perfect sense. I reconfigured everything to only use a single `2600` network but it doesn't really make any difference in the outcome unfortunately.

Performa 475 is running System 7.1 while Power Mac G4 is running OS 9.2.2

I'm the `SuperK` zone on #GlobalTalk with nets 2600-2610. jrouter configured for the whole net range. netatalk (atalkd) configured with:

eno1 -phase 2 -net 2600-2603 -addr 2601.175 -zone "SuperK"

nbplkup run from the netatalk server sees all the devices in my zone.

Having a tough time getting netatalk v4 running on Debian Trixie to have its printers or shares show up in Chooser when jrouter v1.5 is running on a DIFFERENT system. OS 9.2.2 can't see anything but can connect via IP while System 7 can see OS 9 share always but only see netatalk when jrouter is stopped. #MARCHintosh

@billgoats Holy crap!

Tried out InterPrint on my IIfx today and I've got to say, it works beautifully!

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/interprint-112

This Chooser extension allows you to print to LPR queues over TCP/IP. But unlike the IP printing support in LaserWriter 8 (which "requires" Mac OS 8, though I think you can manually install it on as low as System 7.5.3), InterPrint works all the way down to System 6.0.5! It fully supports PostScript, too.

What this means for me is that after #MARCHintosh is over, I can repurpose my Raspberry Pi, which currently acts as an AppleTalk print server for my local network (and #GlobalTalk, by extension).

#RetroComputing #VintageMac #Apple #Mac #MacOS #ClassicMac

@billgoats I'll do some more digging tomorrow on that. I'm connecting it to a PiSCSI running netatalk so perhaps I need to do something more directly with a more modern netatalk.

@billgoats That's how I got it to work with OS 9.2.2. System 7.x would send the job but it'd just get stuck in the CUPS queue & never print.

Long shot but I have a HP LaserJet Pro P1102W that I can share via netatalk + CUPS & print to from MacOS 9.2.2 but not System 7.x (or ealier). Any ideas how I can make this printer work with older Macintosh OSes? Using Ghostscript to convert PS to PCL didn't seem to help. #MARCHintosh

jrouter v0.0.15

D A R K M O D E

https://gitea.drjosh.dev/josh/jrouter/releases/tag/v0.0.15 #GlobalTalk #MARCHintosh