Subject: [netatalk-admins] creation date problem

From: Dale Dellinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 11:53:03 -0800

Hello!

I'm new to netatalk, and I haven't found this problem described in the FAQ,
so here goes:

We recently installed netatalk and we have seen strange things happen with
the creation dates with files.
When files are copied from a mac client, the creation dates are a multiple
of 30 years off (files dated 1996 are set to 1936, 1997->1937, 1998->1938,
1999->1969).  Files created in 2000 or 2001 have the correct creation
years.  The other thing that happens with creation dates is that if a mac
client changes the filename of a file on the server, the creation date also
changes!    We've seen some wild dates ranging from 1909 to 2015.

If anyone knows what we're doing wrong, please let us know.

Environment:
Server - running Linux 2.0.35, netatalk 1.4b2+asun2.1.2
Clients - PowerMacs running 7.5.3, 7.5.5, and 8.0

Thanks!
Dale Dellinger
Raytheon Systems Company

---

From: Devin Reade <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 14:08:18 -0700 (MST)

Dale Dellinger wrote:

> of 30 years off

There were quite a few places where the dates were not handled correctly.
The code assumed that the UNIX and Appleshare epochs were identical.
They are not; UNIX's epoch is 1 Jan 1970, and Appleshare uses 1 Jan 2000.
That is where your 30 years difference enters the picture.  The fact that
the date differences seem to occur under arbitrary circumstances is due
to the error happening in more than one spot, and the algorithms used
when a file does not have a resource fork and file information block.

I patched my Netatalk server to correct for these differences.
Unfortunately, being new to Netatalk, I didn't use the asun distributions
as a base.  I know that Andrew is also addressing these issues, but
I don't know if those patches have been released as yet.  (I need to
check out the most recent versions of the asun distribution and verify
if all of my patches have been duplicated.)

If you want to look at the distribution I'm using, it's at
	ftp://ftp.gno.org/pub/lcc/netatalk-gdr981220a.tar.gz

Unless the file dates are critical to your operations, you probably want
to stick with the asun versions.

> If anyone knows what we're doing wrong, please let us know.

Nothing.  The server is at fault.

Devin
-- 
When the need arises -- and it does -- you must be able to shoot your
own dog.  Don't farm it out -- that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it
worse.							- Robert Heinlein