Description of problem: The netatalk Mac server is useless without the appletalk module in the kernel. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.9-11.EL netatalk-1.6.4-4 How reproducible: Every time. Additional info: There are still pre-MacOS X boxen around in some numbers. What's the harm in turning on the appletalk modules, particularly as the client binaries are still part of the RHEL4.
Yes, it appears that the /lib/modules/2.6.9*/kernel/drivers/net/appletalk/{cops.ko,ipddp.ko,ltpc.ko} are not shipped. Neither are they shipped in RHEL-3. So the only use for netatalk in these releases is for appletalk over IP (MacOSX and later) and support for MacOS clients and Mac printer sharing is denied. I agree we should ship the appletalk modules - but this is a kernel maintainer decision . Moving this bug to kernel.
The customers concerned moved from FC3 to RHEL4, missing out RHEL3. These modules are present in the FC3 kernel. They are currently using the latest FC3 kernel with their RHEL4 systems. Thank you for your supporting comments. I hope the kernel maintainers can see their way clear to add them back in. I appreciate that some may characterise Pre-MacOS X machines as old hat, but there is still a lot of mileage left in them.
reassigning to product management.
This has been reassigned a few times now, with general words of support. Is there any likelyhood of this actually going anywhere?
Nothing heard ... Is there likely to be any forward movement on this issue? A progress report would be much appreciated.
Appletalk has never been supported in RHEL. There is no plan to add appletalk support to any RHEL Product at this time: The use cases are very limited and we do not have the knowledge to do long-term support. Also to the feedback we received up to now it would only be needed for old Apple infrastructures, that are fadin out at our typical customers. We would recommend to take a look at third party solutions or add-ons to solve this issue.
It would have been very helpful to myself and my old fashioned Appletalk needing users if even this terse statement had been made a year ago when it was first transfered to your group .. or indeed 7 months ago when I last asked for an update. Just to confirm, I either have to use an unsupported FC3 kernel with RHEL4, boil my own unsupported kernel with the modules switched on, or switch to another distro that does support the kernel modules we need.