Re: [TCLUG:15155] Netatalk issues

["Kevin R. Bullock" <kbullock@ringworld.org>]

On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Brian Ackermann wrote:

> My understanding is, that appletalk is a UDP based protocol.

As has already been said, AppleTalk uses its own datagram protocol, known
as DDP. Has nothing to do with UDP (or even IP, IIRC).

> Now, if the firewall is configured to ACCEPT all packets from the eth1
> subnet, to the eth2 subnet, and vise versa then it seems to me that
> appletalk should flow freely between the subnets..

I'm not sure that the firewall would have any effect on AppleTalk, since
it's unrelated to IP (unless you're running appletalk-over-ip). AppleTalk
packets may be flowing freely over the entire system, but that's a matter
for a different discussion.

> This did not appear to be happening, so I installed netatalk to force
> routing across the subnets, and everything has been SORTOF working ever
> since.  The problem is, that appletalk is totally unreliable for anything,
> like a file transfer, server connect, printspooling, etc....The service just
> vanishes...it 'ghosts' in and out, if you will....

How did you "force routing"?

> I've posted this question to the netatalk group several times, but nobody
> deigned to answer me, so perhaps a benevolent sould hereabouts will have at
> least some insight...My boss is getting cranky with me, and wants to blame
> linux for the problem...I'm sure its some kind of configuration issue or
> something, but I don't know.  Also, I'm curious why my original premise that
> ATALK should just route automatically was wrong....

This may have something to do with the AppleTalk zones -- maybe the
clients on eth1 can't see the zone for the clients on eth2? Play around
with atalkd.conf (if you haven't already). Put eth1 and eth2 in there,
possibly with some extra options to shove them into the same zone. (eth1
and eth2 should probably be in there anyway, since in the default
configuration, with no interfaces specified, is to open up appletalk to
all interfaces. That could make life interesting since the firewall
probably doesn't stop appletalk requests.)

I hope this makes some kind of sense. I'm going off of empirical data, so
some of this may not be quite accurate.

Pacem in Terris / Mir / Shanti / Salaam / Heiwa
Kevin R. Bullock