Mount Mac OS Extended Journaled Filesystem and share via AFP

I see that I can mount a Mount Mac OS Extended Journaled Filesystem on Ubuntu (it seems, after disabling journaling), and that I can share resources on the network via AFP using netatalk.

My question is -- can I take a disk with an existing Mac OS Extended filesystem, mount it on a server running Ubuntu 16.04 after disabling journaling, and make that filesystem available to Mac's on my network via AFP using netatalk?

Thanks so much!

1 Answer

Yes, I supposed it would be possible to host an HFS+ partition over AFP/netatalk, but a more permanent solution would be to copy the files from the HFS+ partition over to an EXT4 directory. In addition, it's far simpler to setup a Samba server on Linux and the Macs should still be able to access the files.

Adding Samba to your server isn't too difficult, as outlined here

1. Install samba with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install samba
2. Create a new samba user with sudo smbpasswd -a <user_name>
3. Make the directory to be shared mkdir /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>

At this point, you should copy the files over to this directory so that they will be shared on the samba server.

You will have to disable journaling on the Mac to mount the drive on Ubuntu. The first answer at descibes how to disable journaling

On your Mac

1. Open Disk Utility under Applications -> Utilities
2. Seect the volume to disable journaling on.
3. Choose Disable Journaling from the File menu. (On later Mac OS versions you'll have to hold down the option button when you click the File menu. Or if you like Apple+J)

After you connect the drive, mount the partition, as another answer on the question says:

First, make sure that you have hfsprogs installed. Example installation command:

sudo apt-get install hfsprogs

Next, mount or remount the HFS+ drive; commands need to be as follows:

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/sdx# /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>

Then we continue setting up the Samba server

4. Backup the default samba config file sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf_backup
5. Edit the file sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add this to the end

[<folder_name>]
path = /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>
valid users = <user_name>
read only = no

Then restart Samba with

sudo service smbd restart

Then to access the files from a Mac, go to the file manager select Go > Connect To

And enter smb://<ip of server>