appletalk routing retirement project

summary

AppleTalk routing across subnets was discontinued on September 1, 2003.

AppleTalk routing between subnets was discontinued on September 1, 2003. AppleTalk within a given subnet (e.g., printing to local printers and connection to local file servers) is still available. Note that the ITSS wireless net is a different subnet than the local "wired" net. Users who wish to access printers and file servers on the "wired" net from the ITSS wireless net will need to use TCP/IP.

AppleTalk routing within the Medical School networks is still available.

While the AppleTalk Routing Retirement Project has been completed, these pages are being left as a resource for those who wish to have configuration information on TCP/IP printing and file sharing.

Unfortunately, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 users are no longer able to mount AFS folders using the AppleTalk protocol. This was an unexpected result of recent AFS security and stability upgrades, and unfortunately doesn't appear to be feasible to fix. Attempting to mount an AFS folder will cause the Mac OS desktop to hang, requiring a system reboot.

AFS mounting for Mac OS users prior to Mac OS X was handled through AppleTalk and an extremely old AppleTalk to AFS gateway that was heavily modified back in 1996 to work with MacLeland. The sudden death of this service was probably due to the latest AFS security upgrade on May 1st. We cannot go back to older AFS software because of necessary security and stability fixes in the current version, and we cannot update the AppleTalk to AFS gateway software without doing extensive porting and redesign work.

We apologize for not knowing that this upgrade would break the old AppleTalk service for Mac OS 8 and 9 users, so that we could have announced it in advance and given people more time to prepare.

AppleTalk is a communications protocol developed by Apple Computer. In wide use at Stanford through most of the 1990s, AppleTalk routing enables a Macintosh in one AppleTalk subnet (zone) to access servers, printers and other computers located either in the same subnet or in another AppleTalk subnet around campus.

After the September 2003 cutoff, AppleTalk zones will not appear in the Chooser. File sharing and printing to a device in a remote zone will not be possible. Mounting of AFS volumes from MacLeland for System 9.x and below will not work. AppleTalk file sharing and printing will continue to work within a local AppleTalk zone, but it will no longer be supported.

ITSS made the decision to phase out AppleTalk routing because:

• The equipment used to support AppleTalk routing on campus is aging and it is difficult to repair or replace if it fails.
• The support of a separate backbone for routing AppleTalk requires significant resources.
• There is a declining use of AppleTalk routing as old Macintosh systems are replaced by new systems and older AppleTalk-only applications are upgraded to new versions that support TCP/IP.
• Apple Computer has supported the use of TCP/IP for file sharing and printing services since MacOS 8.1. Apple stopped routing AppleTalk on its corporate network in October 1999 and has indicated that its future direction for file sharing and print services is an IP-based architecture.

ITSS encourages departments, organizations, and individuals to assess their use of routed AppleTalk and to migrate to TCP/IP-based applications and services. The AppleTalk networks will be turned off September 1, 2003

Medical Center users will not be affected by this project, since School of Medicine, Information Resources and Technologies (IRT) does not plan to disable AppleTalk routing. IRT will continue to route and support AppleTalk within the Medical Center indefinitely. But IRT does recommend that AppleShare users configure their Macs to do filesharing via TCP/IP, since that results in better performance.

history

AppleTalk is a network protocol designed by Apple and built into almost every Apple Macintosh computer. It enables devices to communicate using a peer-to-peer architecture.

Most vendors that have utilized AppleTalk for client/server applications such as FileMaker and Now Up-to-Date have, or are transitioning to, TCP/IP for networking.

The assessment (MS Word 97/98 format) of AppleTalk at Stanford indicates that it is primarily used for printing to local printers and file servers. Only a limited set of applications require the ability to use AppleTalk across subnets. The assessment finds that AppleTalk routing can be retired without adversely effecting University functions.

AppleTalk routing tables were frozen in November, 2000. The decision to freeze the AppleTalk routing tables was made due to the fact that no support for AppleTalk was built into the new campus network database (NetDB). No changes have been made to the Appletalk zones since that date.

Recently created subnets—including the wireless networks—do not have Appletalk routing.

ITSS announced plans to retire AppleTalk routing at the February, 2001 LNA meeting. An official campus-wide announcement was made in the January, 2002 edition of Changes to Computing. An official email was sent to the Local Network Administrator and Expert Partner communities in late January 2002. The project page was released to the Stanford community in March, 2002.

how will this affect me?

AppleTalk traffic on the local subnet for file servers and printers will not be effected by this change.

AppleTalk zones will not appear in the Chooser. You will not be able to browse AppleTalk file sharing and printing services on remote subnets. Connecting to computers and printers on remote subnets will require TCP/IP. Detailed instructions for TCP/IP connections are available in the how to documents section.

When AppleTalk routing is turned off on September 1, 2003, mounting of AFS volumes from MacLeland for System 9.x and below will no longer be possible. AFS volume mounting is being developed and will be supported for OS X.

A case study on turning off AppleTalk routing at Stanford for the School of Education was completed. This case study demonstrates that turning off AppleTalk routing was not problematic and contains information that will be pertinent to what that will occur on September 1st, 2003.

For more information, please read the FAQ

If you have questions or concerns, please contact HelpSU

how to documents

• Printing via TCP/IP
• Accessing Appleshare servers via TCP/IP
• TCP/IP printing on Windows NT
• Serving files via TCP/IP

other documents

• AppleTalk Routing FAQ
• How Stanford routes AppleTalk
• Implications of Removing AppleTalk Routing at Stanford report. (MS Word format)

software implications

• Now UpToDate calendar software
• FileMaker
• Fourth Dimension (4D) Database

similar projects at other universities

• Northwestern University (February, 2002)
• Penn State (July, 2002)
• Cornell (July, 1999)
• SLAC (October, 2001)
• FermiLab (October, 2001)
• U. Pennsylvania (September, 2000)
• U.C. Berkeley (September, 2002)