maxx27 / afpfs-ng-deb

Access Apple TimeCapsule from Ubuntu

About

Here some notes about attaching Apple TimeCapsule disk to Ubuntu 23.04.

There are different ways to do it:

• mount using afpfs-ng
• mount using samba1
  • need kernel < 5.14, or
  • rebuild kernel with reverted commit
• use netatalk as client

Some files are cached in repo. Thus you may use saved copies of these files.

Any pull request to update information are welcome 😊

Disclaimer

This is mostly my internal notes. So they are partly incomplete. But it is good point to start.

afpfs-ng

Ubuntu doesn't have the afpfs-ng since v14.

$ apt-file search afp_client
<empty>

Nothing is found also: https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=bionic&arch=any&mode=filename&searchon=contents&keywords=afp_client

Build from sources

Credits to https://superuser.com/a/1089747/439273

sudo apt-get install g++ libfuse-dev libreadline-dev libncurses5-dev git

git clone https://github.com/simonvetter/afpfs-ng
cd afpfs-ng/
./configure && make && sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

But:

1. This failed using g++12. I have no time to adapt sources or installed older compiler.
2. I like to use packages (e.g. to uninstall quickly or manage dependencies)

So see next section.

Use package from Arch

You may use package from ArchLinux:

• Open https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/afpfs-ng/
  • Click on the link Download From Mirror (right upper corner)
• or, wget https://mirror.osbeck.com/archlinux/community/os/x86_64/afpfs-ng-0.8.2-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Note

I use amd64 architecture. If your architecture is another than amd64, so please adopt process for it.

Build deb package:

mkdir -p afpfs-ng/DEBIAN
tar xf afpfs-ng-0.8.2-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst -C afpfs-ng/

cat <<EOF > afpfs-ng/DEBIAN/control
Package: afpfs-ng
Architecture: amd64
Maintainer: m.suslov
Priority: optional
Version: 0.8.2-3
Description: A client for the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)
EOF

Note

I didn't find any dependencies. May be all necessary was already installed in my system. Thus I omitted the following section: Depends: package1,package2

Build deb package:

dpkg-deb --build afpfs-ng

Install:

sudo dpkg -i afpfs-ng.deb

Man can be found online or offline:

man mount_afp

Mount as root

sudo mount_afp afp://myuser:mypass@mycapsule/Data /media/airport
sudo umount /media/airport

Mount as user

Uncomment in /etc/fuse.conf:

-#/etc/fuse.conf
+/etc/fuse.conf

otherwise you get

fusermount: option allow_other only allowed if 'user_allow_other' is set in /etc/fuse.conf

and mount:

sudo mkdir -p /media/airport
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) /media/airport
sudo mount_afp -o user=maxim afp://myuser:mypass@mycapsule/Data /media/airport

Use samba v1

Unfortunately, Linux 5.15 drops support for NTLM.

Thus, you may

• use kernel < 5.15
• recompile with samba v1 support

Older kernel

sudo mount -rw -t cifs //mycapsule/data /media/airport/ -o username=myuser,password=mypass,sec=ntlm,vers=1.0 --verbose

or use file with credentials

cat <<EOF > ~/cifs.credo
username=myuser
password=mypass
domain=
EOF
chmod 600 ~/cifs.credo
sudo mount -rw -t cifs //mycapsule/data /media/airport/ -o credentials=$HOME/cifs.credo,sec=ntlm,vers=1.0 --verbose

Maybe you need the following options as well:

• iocharset=utf8

Add reverted changes to a newest kernel

So I needed NTLM support added back into the kernel, so I created a backport patch for vanilla kernel 5.15.12 I don't use arch, but I posted the patch over here: https://821895.bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=761299

From mount.cifs sec=ntlm became bad option Newbie Corner Arch Linux Forums

netatalk

I haven't try this solution, but it may work. Idea is to connect as afp client.

See https://netatalk.sourceforge.io/3.1/htmldocs/

Troubleshooting

Unknown network name

In my case, network name mycapsule isn't resolve via nslookup or dig.

I added a line to /etc/hosts:

+192.168.2.4  mycapsule

IP address can be found in AirPort Time Capsule application.

Case of shared folder

Name is case-sensitive:

$ sudo mount_afp afp://myuser:mypass@mycapsule/data /media/airport
The afpfs daemon does not appear to be running for uid 0, let me start it for you
Mounting mycapsule from data on /media/airport
Volume data does not exist on server MyCapsule.
Choose from: Data, myuser

$ sudo mount_afp afp://myuser:mypass@mycapsule/Data /media/airport
Mounting mycapsule from Data on /media/airport
Mounting of volume Data of server MyCapsule succeeded.