Installing Netatalk on Debian Linux

Install the latest Netatalk

Netatalk is distributed as a deb package in all Debian releases except Debian 12 Bookworm. You can install it with apt and other package managers.

Ex. (with root privileges)

apt install netatalk

If you are running Bookworm, you can build your own debs from the downstream Salsa repo. See the Debian deb packaging chapter for instructions on how to get started.

For building and installing from source yourself, for instance to get a newer version, follow the guides linked here.

• Installation Quick Start
• Compile Netatalk from Source

AppleTalk Support in Kernel

In order to use AppleShare / AFP over AppleTalk (DDP) the Linux system must have an AppleTalk networking stack. Luckily, Debian's Linux kernel comes with a module called "appletalk", which provides this functionality. Without an AppleTalk networking stack, you will only be able to use Netatalk with TCP.

To check if your kernel has AppleTalk support, issue this command and inspect the output:

lsmod | grep appletalk

If the module isn't detected, try launching atalkd first and try again. If atalkd errors out complaining about "Address family not supported by protocol", you may have to try another version of Linux, or compile the Linux kernel yourself. There are guides elsewhere on this topic that you can follow.

Using Netatalk

At this point, you should be able to run the Netatalk daemons on your system.

sudo systemctl enable atalkd.service netatalk.service
sudo systemctl start atalkd.service netatalk.service

Optional services:

sudo systemctl enable papd.service timelord.service a2boot.service
sudo systemctl start papd.service timelord.service a2boot.service