File Sharing

[jasnw]

My home network is all Mac, hardware and software. Is there any reason at all that I should not configure all boxes to exclusively use AFP for file sharing and disable SMB completely? Are there some apps, or processes (such as automounting) that must have SMB in order to work? I know that Apple has for years stated that AFP is on its way out and SMB is the future, but their actions (a broken SMB implementation that hasn't been corrected, far as I know) speak louder. AFP still seems to come closer to the old "it just works" than SMB. I'm asking this because the OS seems to default to an SMB mount if that's available, and those mounts can be unreliable.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Short answer: Nope.

Let's see what happens with 10.12 next week....but as of today, AFP gives me no problems at all in a large lab setting.

 

[jasnw]

Frankly, I shudder to think about 10.12 (or whatever it ends up being called). Used to look forward to OS X updates, now I fear them. Just like the bad old days on Windows.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Yeah, the thrill is gone.

Still, the best way to know what to expect regarding the end of AFP. I hope they hold off for however long it takes for SMB (or whatever is next) to be so good it is a no-brainer to actually change. My hunch (wishful thinking) is that AFP will remain unchanged for at least one more year....and likely more.

 

[Tinmania]

My guess is that this is so far down on the priority list that if it gets better, or worse, it will be purely accidental. So I fear the next update as well.



Mike

 

[jasnw]

Given how bad they've been about fixing non-GUI problems I fear that they'll throw AFP overboard and THEN discover that their SMB implementation has serious problems. This is "discover" as in the famous line from Casablanca along the lines of "Gambling, in this establishment? Rick, I'm shocked, SHOCKED!" discover.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Welp, not much sense in speculating as WWDC is 3 days away.

Unless you plan to upgrade ASAP [why?], I would stick with AFP at least for the foreseeable future.

 

[jasnw]

I just upgraded from Mavericks (a forced upgrade) to El Capitan (after three previous tries) on my work machine and my server is still on Mavericks, so I'm not upgrading to whatever comes next until at least the x.4 version. I will stick to AFP until Apple drops it or makes it so hard to use as an alternative to their SMB implementation that I have to switch. My query was to gather information about what things Apple has already forced onto SMB that are lurking in the background.

 

[hobowankenobi]

OK, here it is. New Apple File system coming in 2017, and will NOT support AFP:

• You can share APFS formatted volumes using the SMB network file sharing protocol. The AFP protocol is deprecated and cannot be used to share APFS formatted volumes.

See the info.....at the very bottom. Interesting read.

I would guess that if anything, this will be delayed, and will be optional for the first year or two at least, and HFS+ will be available and supported for at least two years, and more like 5. So, unless I am way off, we will still have AFP available for at least 2-3 more years, perhaps 5-6.

 

[jasnw]

Yeah, it all sounds good, but as Bill Shakespeare once said "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip." This "one ring to bind them all" sort of thinking, the same filesystem on a watch as on a Mac Pro, seems bound for serious problems. Just as long as Apple doesn't deep-six AFP before Apple's Perfect File System actually does indeed "just work" we'll all be fine. And, as you point out, if Apple does wait for that glad event we're talking at least 5-6 years.

 

[grahamperrin]

@hobowankenobi https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/386302/ watch that space …

 

[grahamperrin]

Apparent file sharing security vulnerability in five or more versions of Apple Mac OS X

http://tinyurl.com/macosxsharedvolumes

Someone might like to tell whether the vulnerability affects SMB. Thanks.