virtualbox.org

I am running a 64 bit Windows 7 "server". I need for it to talk "Apple Filing Protocol" to other machines on the LAN. There are no free or reasonably priced way for Windows to do that directly. I've installed Vbox (4.0.4) and added an Ubuntu guest. I've installed netatalk on that guest. Apple's documentation "suggests" that it only requires TCP port 548 (but I'm sure there are ancillary services which are also involved for the Mac's on the network to detect the AFP server). I need help in setting up Vbox's NAT so I can write to disks on the Windows server for Time Machine (which will not work with SMB disks).

If I had a spare machine around to run FreeNAS on, I would do so in a heartbeat, but I don't.

Does what I am proposing have a chance of working ? Is there a better way to do it ?

Thanks

I can tell you that this will not work. You would have to forward the port to the Guest 1-on-1, this means that the Host will not be able to use AFP. Not only that, but the port number is below 1024, which means that VB needs to run with administrative (root) privileges and that is discouraged.
If you really want to get a chance of getting it to work, use Bridged instead. Then you can dive into the documentation to get a non-Mac OS work with the protocol. The actual way to get that working is not in the scope of this forum.

Thank you. By using the bridged network I am able to see the disks on the guest machine with no trouble. I just had to supply the IP of the guest as the Mac couldn't find it on its own. I haven't solved the problem of getting Time Machine to write to it but, as you correctly pointed out, that is outside the scope of this forum.