# Introduction

## Legal Notice

The Netatalk software package as well as this documentation are distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. A copy of the license is included in this documentation, as well as within the Netatalk source distribution. An on-line copy can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

## Overview of Netatalk

Netatalk is an Open Source software package that can be used to turn a *NIX machine into a fast, light-weight and reliable file server for Macintosh computers.

Using Netatalk's AFP 3.4 compliant file-server leads to significantly higher transmission speeds for older Macs compared to Samba/NFS, while providing clients with the best possible user experience: full support for Macintosh metadata, flawlessly supporting mixed environments of classic Mac OS and OS X clients.

It ships with range of authentication methods to accommodate any deployment environment. Modern macOS features such as Bonjour service discovery, Time Machine backups, and Spotlight indexed search are also supported.