3.9.2-56
Merged 17th March - 1st April 2020
Released 3rd April 2020
This is another important release for Apple users holey reliant on AFP, as in this release we have deleted Rockstor’s Web-UI interface with this Netatalk backed protocol. Again, following on from 3.9.2-55’s announcement, apologies to all those who’s systems are unable to transition to the newer, Samba support for Time Machine. SMB (Samba) is now Apples preferred, and only supported in newer macOS versions, option for running Time Machine over to a network storage system such as is presented by Rockstor. Given we are fast approaching our transition to our ‘Built on openSUSE’ base we needed to make this transition prior to releasing a new ISO which are normally based on the most recent stable release. That way folks start with what it likely to be available in the near and medium future. And as this is a sizeable code reduction it should also help with reducing our increasing urgent pending technical debt tasks, i.e. upgrading across the board to Python 3 and a more appropriate Django, along with all our associated libraries and the like.
So to the bullet points:
-Deprecate Netatalk/AFP. Fixes #2146 @FroggyFlox
-update known non unique product uuids. Fixes #2143 @phillxnet
Thanks to our intrepid forum moderator and long time all repo contributor @Flox for their follow-up AFP removal to accompany the already released Time Machine support within Samba of our last release. And in a further move to prepare for our next installer I have added all the outstanding known non unique Appliance ID’s so that our new installer will catch them before they catch us out. Included in this addition, and as it goes many of the last couple of years, is a continuing effort to nudge our code base that little bit closer to Python 3 compatibility. Still a way to go but bit by bit.
And a final note on the AFP removal: This does not affect an existing configuration or AFP server state, but all future configuration changes will have to be made via the command line in accordance with netatalk documentation. We are simply removing it’s Web-UI configuration / reporting. However we have also removed it as a dependency and so our new installer will not have netatalk installed by default. Also note that although we tried to ensure a yum downgrade would restore AFP functionality, due to db issues of reversing such a change and our requirement to focus on more pressing tasks, such as the “Built on openSUSE” endeavour, test have not been positive with regard to restoring AFP post rpm upgrading to this release. So if you do have an ongoing need for Netatalk then I would suggest a command line approach from here on in. Again apologies but the health of the Netatalk project and Apples deprecation of the protocol it servers, along with our small but dedicated developer team, pretty much rights AFP off as a sustainable endeavour for us.
N.B.
If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/
If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and original order number and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.