LC 475 and netatalk long write pause

[csfont]

Hello, new user here. Please let me know if I am posting in the correct area. I am not that experienced with classic Mac OS, so I may be making rookie errors.

I'm trying to get a Macintosh LC 475 running Mac OS 8.1 to communicate with a netatalk server. They talk, but there is a very long pause during copies to the server.

On an example copy of a ~4 Mbyte file to the server, speed is good for about 5 seconds, probably around 100-200 Kbyte/s, but then slows to a crawl, essentially pausing mid-copy.

It eventually will carry on and finish, but the overall speeds make using a floppy more viable. When I first tried copying a few tens of megabytes to the share, it (eventually) told me it would take three hours. I restarted netatalk to cause the client to error out, but the files that had made it up to that point, except the last file being copied, were intact.

What could be the cause of this long pause, and what can I reasonably do to try and make the mounted share more viable? Could we say whether the problem is on the client or on the server? Is there more information that would be useful for me to provide?

Server:

- netatalk 4.4.1 on a FreeBSD 15-RELEASE VM, with a 12 GB share
- This server was prepared expressly for this purpose, so I can change almost anything about it
- netatalk listens on a specific address (an alias which is a different L3 address from its main address)

Client:

- Macintosh LC 475, 20 Mibyte RAM, 512 Kibyte Video RAM, 120 Mbyte Quantum SCSI HDD
- Asante PDS card Ethernet (model not known) and 5.6.1 driver/extension (chosen based on TCP/IP CP OUI)
- Mac OS 8.1, clean install from CD after booting floppy and wiping boot drive
- Later, updated AppleShare to 3.8.3 but it only affected netatalk auth, not the pause
- Need to specify netatalk server address by IP address in Chooser
- Gets appropriate IP address via DHCP on same L3 network as the netatalk server
- Can ping, can use GetDownClassic (on local network at least)
- Also has an external 330 Mbyte CDC WREN drive attached (maybe older than the computer!), this is the copy source

Network:

- D-Link DGS-1100-05 Gigabit managed switch
- Macintosh LC 475's port on the switch set to 10 Mbit/half duplex
- D-Link has uplink to rest of network where netatalk host lives
- All cables tested to work at Gigabit Ethernet speeds previously on other hosts
- IPv4 network with no Mac-specific services running other than the netatalk server as above

Thank you!

 

[Mike's Future Retro]

I just recently installed the same version of Netatalk on my 2019 Mac Pro to have access from my 475 and iMac G4 Mac mini. Same as you, mount the Netatalk server drive (lets call it "AFP FileShare Server" by entering the IP address 192.168.2.200 and Mac OS 8.1 mounts the drive on the 475... I don't have the issue you mentioned, but then again I was not really doing any type of speed evaluation. Considering its going from a gigabit ethernet down to a 10/10 ethernet my 475 keeps up with its full pipeline as dictated by the 475... No speedy but 'fast enough' for 2 computers produced 30 years apart.

 

[csfont]

I just recently installed the same version of Netatalk on my 2019 Mac Pro to have access from my 475 and iMac G4 Mac mini. Same as you, mount the Netatalk server drive (lets call it "AFP FileShare Server" by entering the IP address 192.168.2.200 and Mac OS 8.1 mounts the drive on the 475... I don't have the issue you mentioned, but then again I was not really doing any type of speed evaluation. Considering its going from a gigabit ethernet down to a 10/10 ethernet my 475 keeps up with its full pipeline as dictated by the 475... No speedy but 'fast enough' for 2 computers produced 30 years apart.

Thanks MFR --

Since it's working for you, that could indicate an issue on the server side. When I get a chance, I'll reduce the complexity by removing the server's management address and making the netatalk listening address the only one on the box, just in case.

I'm not really looking for much performance, just anything at least as good as a floppy. I was probably averaging 4 Kibyte/s when I was trying it out.

The afp.conf I am using looks like this:

[Global]
; Global server settings

afp listen = 192.168.255.96
appletalk = yes
; uam list = uams_dhx.so uams_dhx2.so uams_randnum.so uams_clrtxt.so
legacy icon = daemon

[Homes]
basedir regex = /home

[share]
path = /data/share
volume name = Share on netatalk
legacy volume size = yes

The uam list is commented out because it didn't work after I updated AppleShare from 3.7.x to 3.8.3.