i have been working on this for quite some time. i finally found a blog that outlined it – here is the quick and dirty version. the blog is by chris lyons.

 

i currently have this set up and running in a local business. it manages 6 different mac’s (1x os x 10.5.8, 5x os x 10.6.8) and 2 windows xp sp3 virtual machines. so far the system has been in place for 8 months without issue. i will be migrating all mac’s to os x 10.7.8 in the coming months as well as migrating the server to a minimalist version of ubuntu 12.04.

 

# install the following packages
sudo apt-get install libdb4.7-dev libgcrypt11 avahi-daemon tcpd netatalk

# in order to build packages from the source, do the following
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall
sudo apt-get install cvs subversion git-core mercurial
sudo chown $USER /usr/local/src
sudo chmod u+rwx /usr/local/src

# next, download the netatalk software
wget http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/netatalk/netatalk/2.2.2/netatalk-2.2.2.tar.bz2

# untar and build netatalk from source
tar xvjf netatalk-2.2.2.tar.bz2
cd netatalk-2.2.2
./configure --enable-debian
make
sudo make install

# edit the afpd.conf
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/netatalk/afpd.conf

# add the following to the bottom of the file
- -tcp -noddp -uamlist uams_randnum.so,uams_dhx.so,uams_dhx2_passwd.so -nosavepassword

# edit the applevolumes file to add shares to the afp server
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default

# add the following to the bottom – this allows users access to their home directories – change as neded
~ "Home" allow:UserName cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv

# you can add a variety of folders to the applevolumes – below is the syntax
/media/files "Files" allow:UserName cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv
/media/tm1 "Time Machine 1" allow:UserName cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv,tm
/media/tm2 "Time Machine 2" allow:UserName cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv,tm

# create the xml file that will control avahi
sudo nano /etc/avahi/services/afpd.service

# add this to the newly created /etc/avahi/services/afpd.service
<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?><!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">
<service-group>
<name replace-wildcards="yes">%h</name>
<service>
<type>_afpovertcp._tcp</type>
<port>548</port>
</service>
<service>
<type>_device-info._tcp</type>
<port>0</port>
<txt-record>model=Xserve</txtrecord>
</service>
</service-group>

# restart netatalk and avahi
sudo service netatalk restart
sudo service avahi restart

# go to each mac on the network, open a terminal, and enter the following
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

that should be it – now the mac users should be able to go to the Go -> Connect to server menu and connect to the afp using username@ip.of.the.server