Upgrade netatalk from 3.1.10->3.1.11 in FreeNAS 9.10: possible?

[mbrown.atx]

Hey folks,

We believe we're wrestling with this bug in our production environment: dsi_stream_read: len:0, unexpected EOF, GitHub#82

We are running FreeNAS 9.10.2-U6 currently, and our video editors, who are accessing AFP shares from MacOS clients ranging from 10.10 to 10.12, are reporting crippling network connection problems when those AFP share connections are left 'idle' for some amount of time (not sure on the exact amount - seems to be anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes). As this occurs, I see in the FreeNAS logs the noted error message above, along with some others which also reference the afpd process, such as dsi_stream_read: len:-1, Operation timed out.

I noticed in the release notes for Netatalk 3.1.11 that at least the former message above was reported on GitHub, #82, and was fixed in this release. Version 9.10 of FreeNAS appears to be running 3.1.10, however.

Is it possible to update the Netatalk version in FreeNAS 9.10 without causing issues?

 

[wblock]

Not easily. For testing, I'd suggest setting up a FreeNAS 11.1 system, which has Netatalk 3.1.11. Test it to see if it solves that issue. I'd also suggest evaluating SMB or NFS for the future.

 

[mbrown.atx]

Hey, thanks for the advice. I'd figured it's probably safer to just do the upgrade to FreeNAS 11 to get the latest netatalk (vs compiling it from source), but was hoping to avoid it if possible...now I need to do some research on caveats of upgrading from 9.10 to 11. Also, we'd originally migrated to SMB for all our shares, but amidst the different implementations of SMB in OS X/macOS since 10.7+, we just ran into SOO many problems with our editors that we eventually bit the bullet and moved them back to AFP. For a while, things have been pretty good, but this 'idle timeout' issue seems to be cropping up more and more, so we wanted to try to change as little as possible - ie, JUST upgrading netatalk.

We don't have a terribly complicated setup in FreeNAS, though - just one pool and some stores carved out of it, shared out via AFP. From what I gather, the upgrade to version 11 is usually smooth, save for setups involving the use of jails.

Any tips or references/links you can suggest are greatly appreciated!

 

[wblock]

Sorry, nothing specific. If you can use NFS, it's faster than SMB.