> Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff. The last update to AFP shipped with

> Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff. The last update to AFP shipped with Mac OS X Mountain Lion in 2012 [1]. Nobody should be using AFP in 2023, unless you have no other choice. While you can use Time Machine to backup to an SMB share, ideally you want to use an APFS volume to get all of the benefits, especially if you're concerned about data integrity. You can read about using APFS network shares for Time Machine at The Eclectic Light Company [2], a Mac-focused blog/website by Howard Oakley. If you're interested in the details of how Time Machine works, nobody I'm aware of has written more about its details than he has [3]. He's written a slew of useful macOS utilities, including T2M2 for Time Machine [4]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol [2]: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/04/16/time-machine-to-apfs-using-a-network-share/ https://eclecticlight.co/2021/04/16/time-machine-to-apfs-usi... [3]: https://eclecticlight.co/?s=time+machine https://eclecticlight.co/?s=time+machine [4]: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/09/29/going-beyond-t2m2-with-mints-grokking-time-machine-to-apfs/ https://eclecticlight.co/2021/09/29/going-beyond-t2m2-with-m...