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netatalk.inf
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* What is netatalk?
netatalk is a kernel-level implementation of the AppleTalk Protocol
Suite for BSD-derived systems. It includes support for routing
AppleTalk, serving Unix and AFS filesystems over AFP (AppleShare),
serving Unix printers and accessing AppleTalk printers over PAP. A
number of other minor printing and debugging utilities are also
included.
* What's the difference between netatalk and CAP?
The primary difference between netatalk and CAP is structure, in
two ways. First, netatalk is a kernel-level implementation of
AppleTalk. This means that packet reception in general and routing
in particular are both efficient and easy to implement. It also
means that new link-layers (e.g. one could add PPP, we've recently
tested FDDI) can easily be added. CAP, on the other hand, relies
on several less efficient tho more available methods, (e.g.
DDP-over-UDP, NIT).
The second structural difference is in coding style. netatalk is
an integration of AppleTalk into the existing Unix networking
paradigm. All of the semantics useful to the UDP/TCP programmer
are useful to the netatalk-AppleTalk programmer, e.g. sendto(),
select(). In contrast, CAP is written with the semantics of
MacOS.
All of the above differences are of primary interest to the
developer and administrator. The end user will probably only
notice that netatalk is somewhat faster than CAP (an artifact of
both the architecture and coding style).
* Does netatalk support EtherTalk Phase II?
Yup. The 1.3 release can do phase 1 and phase 2, and route between
them on the same interface. This release has support for Suns
running SunOS 4.1.[x] and DECs running Ultrix 4.[1-3]. There
should be some number of minor releases to support phase 2 on
RS/6k, Solaris, OSF/1 and some BSD-OSes.
* Will netatalk run under SunOS5.0?
Eventually. Since SunOS 5 is SysV based, the kernel portions of
netatalk will have to be modified to function in a STREAMS
environment.
* Will netatalk run on Solbourne machines?
According to mahesh@evb.com: netatalk will not work on Solbourne
(with 4.1A and 4.1B OS) and will/may work on 4.1C OS which will be
released later this year. This is a problem with Solbourne's lack
of support for loadable kernel modules.
* Does netatalk work on NeXTs?
At one point we were working on a port. It was not going well, and
then NeXT decided to become a completely different company. We are
no longer working on a port.
* How difficult would it be to port netatalk to machine X?
Invariably: very. For most machines, expect to need full source.
Also, any machine whose networking is not BSD-derived is going to
be even harder. Don't let this stop you from trying, certainly,
but begin with your eyes open: you will need to know a lot, and you
will need to have some usually hard to get resources.
* What's in store for the future of netatalk:
Changes in 1.4 may include ATP in the kernel, with dynamically
calculated retry timers. ADSP is also likely to show up at that
time. A portion of the NBP table will likely go into the kernel,
so that NBP entries go away magically when sockets are closed.
There are also plans to add AppleTalk over PPP to a freely
redistributible PPP implementation.
* How do I pronouce netatalk?
Ah, good question! The unenlightened often mis-pronounce this word
\'net-'a-to.k\. The correct pronouciation is \'ned-*-to.k\ (the
't' is soft, like d, and the first 'a' is a schwa).