AppleTalk Kernel Module

AppleTalk Kernel Module

Netatalk 2 relies on AppleTalk support in the kernel to make use of the DDP transport layer. The atalkd daemon will attempt to dynamically load the kernel module if not detected, and error out if all attempts fail:

Address family not supported by protocol

You can still use Netatalk's DSI transport layer (TCP/IP) without AppleTalk support in the kernel.

At the time of writing, Linux and NetBSD are known to have officially maintained AppleTalk kernel modules. At least Debian Linux (as of Bullseye) comes with the kernel module compiled in by default. There is code for a Solaris kernel module in the Netatalk source tree.

Linux

To check if your kernel has AppleTalk support, first start the atalkd daemon, then issue this command and inspect the output:

$ lsmod | grep appletalk

If no appletalk module is detected, you may have to compile support into the kernel. This section describes the modular approach, but it should also be possible to compile the AppleTalk module directly into the kernel for a slight performance boost.

This section will not describe the entire process, but rather follow the steps in the Raspberry Pi documentation. Do the steps in the documentation in this order:

• Building the Kernel Locally
• Apply the Default Configuration
• Preparing to Configure
• Using menuconfig
• Networking support ---> Networking options ---> Appletalk protocol support
  • Press M to select this
  • Select Appletalk interfaces support and press M again
  • Save and exit menuconfig
• Building the Kernel
• Reboot the system once the process is completed (compilation may take an hour or longer on slower systems)
• Check that the appletalk kernel module has been loaded, as per the above
• If the module isn't automatically loaded, add a line to /etc/modules
  • appletalk

Solaris

Netatalk distributes code for an AppleTalk module for Solaris / Illumos, located under sys/solaris. It is presently configured for the SPARC architecture only.