OLD: Making Time Machine work with the ReadyNAS

[sphardy]

Hi Toad,

Regarding WiFi and Ethernet access:

I first setup TM via Ethernet - a lot of data to transfer in that first backup. So the bundle was named according to the MAC address of en0 using exactly the command you quote (though it appears the volname can be anything). I then found that once setup, wifi based backup works just fine also to the same sparsebundle. It appears that either 1) TM always names the bundle based on the MAC address of en0 or 2) once setup TM continues to use the same bundle irrespective of access method.

To get the correct name:

Probably not a good method for an official guide but I used TM to try to create the sparsebundle initially, which of course fails and you have to do this manually. But TM does start to create the bundle and you can see it in Finder. I simple copied the name while the operation was ongoing. This helped as my Macbook's name had a space in it and (IIRC) it appears the space is removed when creating the TM sparsebundle. As you comment - I would suspect other characters will be similar affected and have since renamed my Macbook with pure alphanumeric characters to prevent possible future issues

Note this is probably a way to also figure if TM names it's sparsebundle differently if created via wifi

Re IPv6:

Initially I had that set to automatic also when running TM for the first time and all was fine. I've since disabled it based on poor experience in the Windows world where I've had issues in the past with both IPv4 & IPv6 enabled - so purely a precaution; I've not experienced any issues with IPv6 being enabled on my Mac

///P

[toad]

Well, my new test (with IPv6 off and AFP add-on installed) tanked again. It seemed to be going really well (went through something like 2.5GB without a noticeable pause), all of a sudden progress stopped, and I heard the drive had stopped activity... various processes became essentially hung, and after some time I grew increasingly frustrated until I finally did a force restart. Deleted the image, copied over a new one, and started the process again before going to bed, and returned this morning to find it reported 1K progress (though the image was now over 1.5GB??), and things were again stalled, requiring a forced restart... This was all with TM set to OFF, and using a manual Back Up Now command. Argh! Maybe I'll start it over again before heading to the office...

[sirozha]

I have successfully set up Time Machine on my MackBook Air to make network backups to ReadyNAS over Wi-Fi (802.11a). I am running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 on my MacBook Air and RAIDiator™ v3.01c1-p6 on my ReadyNAS X6.

Configuring Time Machine for Network Backups to an AFP-mounted Share
Follow the following steps:
1. In the Terminal Window, enter the following command:

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defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1


This command enables Time Machine to perform backups to network shares. The capability to perform backups over the network was initially announced by Apple prior to the release of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. However, Apple changed its mind and disabled this functionality with the release of Mac OS X 10.5. In January of 2008, Apple announced a new product called Time Capsule , which is currently the only officially supported device to which Time Machine is allowed to make network backups. The above command enables Time Machine to perform network backups to any network share regardless of what device that network share is located on.

2. Create a sparsebundle on your Mac's desktop. The reason you need to create a sparsebundle is to limit the disk space that Time Machine will be using for the backups of your Mac. By limiting the size of the sparsebundle you are preventing Time Machine from cannibalizing your ReadyNAS's entire storage capacity. Issue the following command in Terminal window:

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sudo hdiutil create -size 80g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname "Backup of Macbook Air" -fs "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" -verbose ~/Desktop/MBA_001ec2b7d8df.sparsebundle

Explanation of parameters:

-size 80g -- I set the size of my sparsebundle to 80 GB. You can make this to be any value, but I would suggest making the size of the sparsebundle to be about 110% - 130% of your Mac's hard drive to allow for the first full backup + a good number of incremental backups. However, make sure you are leaving enough room on the ReadyNAS for files other than Time Machine's backups

-volname -- Set the name of the volume to anything you want. I decided to name my sparsebundle Backup of Mackbook Air

-fs -- Set the type of the filesystem used by the sparsebundle

-verbose -- Display the progress of the sparsebundle creation

~/Desktop/MBA_001ec2b7d8df.sparsebundle -- Create the sparsebundle with the name MBA_001ec2b7d8df.sparsebundle on the desktop under your profile

MBA_001ec2b7d8df.sparsebundle -- This is the name of the sparsebundle.

MBA -- Name of my MacBook Air. Initially, it shipped with the name "MacBook Air". I decided to rename it to "MBA". To find out your Mac's name, go to System Preferences -> Sharing and look in the Computer Name field. You can change your name in this field too. If your computer name has spaces, they should be replaced with dashes, but I would recommend renaming your computer so that its name contains no spaces.

_ -- This is an "underscore". Use it to separate your Mac's Computer Name from its MAC address.

001ec2b7d8df -- This is my MacBook Air's MAC address. MAC stands for Media Access Control; it is not the same thing as Mac. This is the physical address of you network card. You can find it in System Preferences -> Network. On the left, select the network card that you will be using for network backups and click on Advanced. At the bottom of the first tab, you will see the MAC address of your network card. My MacBook Air has only one network card, which is "Airport". The MAC address is listed at the bottom of the Airport tab as Airport ID. It is listed there as 00:1e:c2:b7:d8:df . There are different ways to write a MAC address; delimiting it with colons is one way of doing it. It can also be written as 001e.c2b7.d8df. In order to use it in the command above, remove the delimiting characters like this: 001ec2b7d8df

.sparsebundle -- this is the file extension used for the sparsebundle

Once you have issued the above command, the sparsebundle will appear on your desktop.

3. Create a share on your ReadyNAS that will be used for Time Machine's backups. I called my share tm.

4. Enable AFP on your ReadyNAS by going in FrontView to Services -> Standard File Protocols and then select AFP. You do not have to select the checkboxes that advertise AFP via AppleTalk or Bonjour -- AppleTalk is being phased out by Apple, and Bonjour does not work properly with RAIDiator™ v3.01c1-p6. However, if you choose to advertise AFP via AppleTalk or Bonjour, this procedure should work just as well.

5. Configure AFP on the share you have created for Time Machine's backups by going in FrontView to Shares -> Share Listings and clicking on the icon in the AFP column for the newly created share. Now make sure that you give users appropriate permissions to this share. If your ReadyNAS is in User Security Mode, once the AFP [MAC] sub-tab opens under the Share Options tab, select Read/Write for Default Access. Then click on the Advanced Options sub-tab, and change Share folder owner to your username on ReadyNAS or/and change Share folder group to the user group to which your username on ReadyNAS belongs. If you give share folder permissions to the group to which your username belongs, then change the Share folder group rights to Read/Write; if you give share folder permissions to your username, then don't change anything here. Finally, select the checkbox that says: Set ownership and permission for existing files and folders in this share to the above settings. Click on Apply. You will see a few system messages generated by the ReadyNAS. Once the change has been committed, you are ready to proceed to #6.

6. Log out of your profile (don't switch users, but rather log out), and log back in. This is needed for the command in #1 to take effect.

7. On your Mac, open Finder, and in the menu go to Go -> Connect to Server. In the Server Address field, type:

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afp://Your_ReadyNAS_IP_Address/Your_ReadyNAS_Time_Machine_Share

Explanation of Parameters:

Your_ReadyNAS_IP_Address -- This is the IP address of your ReadyNAS.

Your_ReadyNAS_Time_Machine_Share -- This is the name of the share you have created on the ReadyNAS for Time Machine's backups.

My ReadyNAS' IP address is 192.168.200.20, so in my case, I typed:

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afp://192.168.200.20/tm

By issuing this command, you will mount the share that Time Machine will be using. In the above example, the share tm is mounted over AFP.

A window will appear, prompting you for your ReadyNAS username and password. Enter them in the appropriate fields and then select the checkbox that would store your username and password in Keychain. This way in the future Time Machine will be able to mount the share dedicated to Time Machine backups without your assistance.

8. Once you have mounted your share over AFP, Finder will open a window with the contents of this share. Initially, it is empty. Now you are ready to copy your sparsebundle to this share. On your desktop, locate the sparsebundle that you created in #2 and drag it to the Finder window open on your newly created share located on the ReadyNAS. Wait for the copy operation to complete. Once the copy operation is complete, delete the sparsebundle from your desktop.

9. Under Apple menu, select System Preferences, and click the Time Machine module. Move the slider to "ON", and a window will open in which you should be able to see the share that you set up for Time Machine backups. Select this share and click on Use for Backup. Wait two minutes for Time Machine to start its first full backup. During the first full backup, if you navigate in Finder to the share that you created for Time Machine backups and choose the View as Columns from the menu, you will be able to watch your sparsebundle grow in size as Time Machine creates the full backup to the sparsebundle.

My Mackbook Air initially had 19.3 GB of used space on its hard drive. It took Time Machine 3 hours 20 minutes to make the first full backup over Wi-Fi 802.11a. If you have pre-802.11n, your first backup should be a lot faster unless the amount of used disk space on your Mac is a lot more than on mine. After the first full backup, Time Machine will start making incremental backups. By default, Time Machine is set to make incremental backups every hour. This interval can be changed by another command issued in Terminal. Time Machine keeps hourly, daily, and weekly incremental backups. Incremental backups are a lot smaller than full backups, so they should take between a few seconds and a few minutes to complete. Once the total space consumed by Time Machine reaches the limit in GB that you specified for your sparsebundle in #1, Time Machine will start deleting older incremental backups and will be replacing them with newer incremental backups.

Configuring Time Machine for Network backups to a CIFS-mounted Share
You can use CIFS instead of AFP as the network protocol to access the share on ReadyNAS where your sparsebundle will reside. Generally, follow the same directions above except the following:

In step #4, enable CIFS instead of AFP.

In step #5, click on the CIFS icon next to the share that you have created instead of clicking on the AFP icon. Also, on the Share Options tab -> CIFS [Win/Mac] subtab, set Default Access to Read/Write, scroll down to the Advanced CIFS Permsions section and set Group rights to Read/Write for the newly created folders as well as for the newly created files. This settings are necessary if you want Time Machine backups to work properly across different profiles on your Mac. Then click on the Advanced Options subtab and change the share folder owner to your ReadyNAS username (if you only use one profile on your Mac) or change the share folder group to the group name to which your ReadyNAS username belongs (if you are using more than one profile on your Mac). Then select the Set ownership and permission for existing files and folders in this share to the above settings. checkbox and click on Apply

In step #7, if you are using Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), you do not need to manually mount the share over CIFS. Your ReadyNAS name should appear under PLACES in Finder's side bar. Click on your ReadyNAS name. Then click on Connect As if you have never connected to your ReadyNAS before; otherwise, ignore this step. You will be prompted for your ReadyNAS username and password, and once you supply them and select to store your credentials in Keychain, a list of shares on your ReadyNAS will open in a Finder window. Select the share that you created for Time Machine backups (you have just mounted the Time Machine backup target over CIFS) and go to step #8. Then proceed to step #9.

I stopped using AFP for Time Machine and switched to CIFS for the following reason. When I was mounting the tm share over AFP, the list of my CIFS shares on ReadyNAS was no longer available in Finder's side bar. It appears that Mac prefers AFP to CIFS, so as soon as one share on ReadyNAS is mounted over AFP, CIFS shares on the same network device disappear from Finder. Therefore, the way to mitigate this situation is to use the same network protocol for Time Machine backup target share as the one you use for all other ReadyNAS shares. Because I have a mixed Windows/Mac environment, I have to use CIFS for my regular network shares on ReadyNAS, and therefore, I have to use CIFS for the Time Machine backup target share.

Note on Selecting Network Share in Time Machine after Initial Setup
Unless your network share with the sparsebundle on it is mounted automatically upon logging in to your profile, you will not be able to see the share when you open Time Machine next time you log out and log back in. However, if you mount the share from Finder first and then open Time Machine, you will be able to see the share again. Not able to see the share from Time Machine once the initial setup is complete does not affect the ability of Time Machine to make backups on to the network share.

If upon the login to another user profile, Time Machine complains that it cannot mount the backup share over AFP, open Finder and manually mount that share (see #7). When prompted for username and password for the backup share, supply the correct ReadyNAS username and password and select the box to save these credentials in Keychain. After that, log out of this user profile and log in to the profile from which Time Machine was configured for network backups to ReadyNAS. Make sure that Time Machine shows no error messages in this profile; then log in to the other user's profile again. At this point, Time Machine should not display any error messages in that user profile either. You only need to do this once for every profile on your Mac as long as you store the correct ReadyNAS username and password in each user profile's Keychain on your Mac.


Credits and Disclosure
The procedure described above was compiled by me from various other posts in this forum as well as from the personal observations when experimenting with Time Machine network backups. Therefore, I am not claiming any copyright to it. Neither do I assume any responsibility if this procedure breaks anything on your Mac or on your ReadyNAS.

[toad]

Well done, sirozha!!!
Thanks for taking this on (and so thoroughly!)!

[yoh-dah]

Very nicely detailed sirozha! Can those who try this let me know if the instructions work out for your Mac environment so that I can post this on readynas.com?

[Tom Sawyer]

So far have not been successful with this procedure... Have followed to a T but at the end of the process I see the AFP share in Time Machine... but not the sparse image...? I did use my machine name, correct MAC and made my size 500g. I was using an external drive previously with TM, maybe that's the problem?

[sphardy]

Having just received a brand new Macbook with factory install of 10.5.2 - I followed the instructions posted. Worked perfectly for me.

To emphasise - contrary to some previous posts - I found that the command:

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write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

is absolutely required even under 10.5.2.

I do not intend to have multiple accounts on this Mac so did not complete the very final steps documented in the last paragraph

Great write up

[sirozha]

deleted as duplicate

[sirozha]

So far have not been successful with this procedure... Have followed to a T but at the end of the process I see the AFP share in Time Machine... but not the sparse image...? I did use my machine name, correct MAC and made my size 500g. I was using an external drive previously with TM, maybe that's the problem?

Sounds like the permissions problem on the network share to me.

1. Can you see the sparsebundle in your share from Finder? If not, again, this points to a permissions issue.

2. Did you chose "None" in your Time Machine Preferences to make it stop using your external drive as backup target? I believe you have to do this first to cancel your Time Machine backups to the external drive before choosing another backup target (your sparsebundle on a ReadyNAS share).

3. Did you create a brand new share on your ReadyNAS? If not, I would try this and make sure that read/write permissions are given to the share and to the share folder for your username. Or better yet, give the read/write permissions to everyone.

4. Are you mounting your network share over AFP or CIFS? I did not try CIFS, so I cannot tell for sure if it will work or not. This still needs to be tested. I use CIFS to access all other shares located on ReadyNAS. The share with the sparsebundle on it is the only AFP share that I have.

5. What security mode is your ReadyNAS in? I did not try Share mode. I have always used User mode, so I cannot vouch for what happens with permissions in Share mode. (Infrant, please please streamline your permissions in the next release of RAIDiator. The way it is now, only geeks can figure this out. You can find my suggetions in the "Permissions" forum where I described how I tested CIFS permissions).

6. Have you tried the following command before trying my directions?

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sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1


I have a sinking suspicion that not only does this command not work for Time Machine, but it also does something to the profile from which you entered it and disables the ability of Time Machine to to see your sparsebundle even after you issue the correct command:

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defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

This actually happened to the profile from which I was originally (several weeks ago) trying to get Time Machine to work with my ReadyNAS. Back then I was in my wife's profile, and I could not see the network share that I had mounted over AFP even after I issued the following command:

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sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1


When I started my adventure last night, I used my profile (not my wife's profile) to configure Time Machine for network backups, and everything worked well. Time Machine still performs network backups from my wife's profile, but I cannot see the sparsebundle from Time Machine when I am in her profile. So, I can only configure Time Machine from my profile, but I can use it from my wife's profile as well.

So, my next suggestion to you would be to create another profile, give it administrative rights, and try to follow my procedure step by step again. If it works from there, follow the last paragraphs of my procedure that explain how to get Time Machine to work across user profiles.

On the other hand, the inability to configure Time Machine for network backups from any profile other than where it was originally set up may be the feature that Apple intentionally put in Time Machine so that other users could not disable this functionality, and so that only the original user could change the configuration. This still needs to be tested to be able to tell for sure.

[harrism]

I have the same problem: I followed the instructions exactly, but when I go to choose a drive in TM, it shows me the AFP share on the NAS but not the sparsebundle. I can see the sparsebundle in the finder, and all permissions are set to read/write.

One question: Do we have to select the sparsebundle in the TM disk chooser? It seems to me we don't have to, since we put a sparsebundle on the share with the same name that TM creates (I verified this by letting TM create a file to see the name and then stopping it).

So right now I'm trying a backup to the AFP share directly, and it seems to be happily writing to the sparsebundle I created. It should be done in several hours at this rate...

Also, note that on macbook pro TM uses the MAC address of the primary ethernet adapter even if you are connected over wifi, so you need to create the sparsebundle with the MAC address of the primary ethernet adapter.

[sirozha]

I have the same problem: I followed the instructions exactly, but when I go to choose a drive in TM, it shows me the AFP share on the NAS but not the sparsebundle. I can see the sparsebundle in the finder, and all permissions are set to read/write.

One question: Do we have to select the sparsebundle in the TM disk chooser? It seems to me we don't have to, since we put a sparsebundle on the share with the same name that TM creates (I verified this by letting TM create a file to see the name and then stopping it).

This is actually a very good question. I was doing it late last night. I think I was able to see the sparsebundle on the AFP share. However, when I open Time Machine preferences now, I can only see the AFP share and not the sparsebundle on it. So, I will try to change the backup target and then see if I can choose the sparsebundle.

One thing that I noticed that worries me somewhat is that Time Machine is reporting all the available space on my ReadyNAS. I was under the impression that the whole idea of a sparsebundle is to limit the amount of disk space that Time Machine is allowed to use.

However, this may also have something to do with the version of firmware on the ReadyNAS that I am running (RAIDiator™ v3.01c1-p6 ). Perhaps there's something missing in AFP in this version of firmware that does not allow Time Machine to realize that it is supposed to use only the maximum allowed size of the sparsebundle. It would be nice if someone running latest firmware from ver. 4 could tell us if Time Machine is reporting the size of the sparsebundle on the network share or the entire available disk size on the ReadyNAS.

[harrism]

One thing that I noticed that worries me somewhat is that Time Machine is reporting all the available space on my ReadyNAS. I was under the impression that the whole idea of a sparsebundle is to limit the amount of disk space that Time Machine is allowed to use.

However, this may also have something to do with the version of firmware on the ReadyNAS that I am running (RAIDiator™ v3.01c1-p6 ). Perhaps there's something missing in AFP in this version of firmware that does not allow Time Machine to realize that it is supposed to use only the maximum allowed size of the sparsebundle. It would be nice if someone running latest firmware from ver. 4 could tell us if Time Machine is reporting the size of the sparsebundle on the network share or the entire available disk size on the ReadyNAS.

I am using firmware version 4 and TM is reporting the full size of the disk on the ReadyNas. But again, I'm telling TM to use the AFP share, not the sparsebundle (since the sparsebundle doesn't show up).

Mark

[sirozha]

I am using firmware version 4 and TM is reporting the full size of the disk on the ReadyNas. But again, I'm telling TM to use the AFP share, not the sparsebundle (since the sparsebundle doesn't show up).

Mark

Which version exactly are you running? Have you installed the AFP add-on?

[davidtay]

You do not have to use the corresponding MAC address for the network interface that is currently in use. I regularly switch between ethernet & 80211n, depending on location. Time machine backups to the ReadyNAS NV+ work fine whether I'm on ethernet or 80211.

OTOH, I have another mac which had issues with the sparse bundle. The work around I did was to create the sparse bundle image first on a 1394 attached external drive, copy that image to the ReadyNAS and point TM to the ReadyNAS. Things have been working since.

It looks like a problem that Apple needs to fix since the crash logs indicated as such.

[sirozha]

So far have not been successful with this procedure... Have followed to a T but at the end of the process I see the AFP share in Time Machine... but not the sparse image...? I did use my machine name, correct MAC and made my size 500g. I was using an external drive previously with TM, maybe that's the problem?

I just re-created this scenario. What you are seeing is correct. You will not see the sparsebundle from Time Machine but will see the share. Just select this share and click on Use for Backups. Your first full backup will start in 2 minutes. You can open Finder and navigate to the share where your sparsebundle is located. If you select View as List in Finder's menu, you will be able to watch the sparsebundle size increase as Time Machine is writing the full backup into the sparsebundle.

I have edited my original post to make this correction. Sorry for the confusion.