Comment 22 for bug 109917

I get a similar error with Ubuntu 8.04 i386 when installing netatalk with apt-get.
--
Unpacking netatalk (from .../netatalk_2.0.3-9_i386.deb) ...
Setting up netatalk (2.0.3-9) ...
Starting Netatalk services (this will take a while): nbp_rgstr: Connection timed out
Can't register Petra:Workstation@*
invoke-rc.d: initscript netatalk, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing netatalk (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 netatalk
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
--

Of note is hat I have two physical ethernet cards and connections on eth0 and eth1. Shutting both cards with ifdown and then bringing one card up (eth0) permits installation without the error. My ifconfig (with both up) is as follows:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr DE:LE:TE:D.
          inet addr:192.168.1.100 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:6eff:fe97:b78a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:174088 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:211563 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:109965451 (104.8 MB) TX bytes:207806773 (198.1 MB)
          Interrupt:16 Base address:0xa000

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr DE:LE:TE:D.
          inet addr:192.168.0.254 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:f0ff:fe0b:91d4/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:24245 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:284 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8079180 (7.7 MB) TX bytes:46520 (45.4 KB)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0xe000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:1494 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1494 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:78600 (76.7 KB) TX bytes:78600 (76.7 KB)

Apparently netatalk has trouble figuring out which eth to hook to when there is more than one choice. The online manual for netatalk (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/2.0/htmldocs) helped me figure out that atalkd (part of netatalk) breaks with two ethernet connections unless you configure atalkd.conf properly. By eliminating one connection, I avoided the described nuance. Starting the second eth after installation doesn't cause an issue (other than it doesn't house a netatalk connection). It would be nice if the package installation indicated at least confusion about which port to select or no ports available. Even better would be to ask what to do as a previous poster indicated.