Joped.com

A recent work around has been posted on a number messages boards. I am not sure where it originated because a few people are claiming they found the hack. Either way, the following was NOT found by me

On the Mac type the following at a terminal:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

On the NAS server, create a file named .com.apple.timemachine.supported in the root of the shared partition.

This has finally allowed me to see the mount point using SMB. However, I have still not been able to make this work using AFP. I would rather use AFP because it is a huge performance boost.

As I started getting closer to a solution, I started to run into quite a few problems with my home server. To start off, its a very old copy of Debian that is in a very strange state. I was experimenting with apt pinning a while back, which failed pretty bad.

Its a raid 5 system with some of my more important data on it, so I can’t just wipe it. To make matters worse, one of the drives is in a degraded state and needs to be replaced. Of course, it just popped out of warranty a few months ago. I need to wait a few weeks before I can afford to purchase a new drive for it. In the mean time, I have powered down the system.

Now, I am using a very old and slow AMD system. This was a backup workstation I used a few years ago for some basic web browsing. After running it over night, I was shocked when I found it was only at 25% of backing up 80GB.

On the system side of things, it does have a gigabit network card. However, the iowait time was pegged at 80%. After some digging around, I found out the system only has a USB 1.1 port! Needless to say, I am working on getting a slightly newer system that I have up and running with a new version of Debian. It is the system I was previously using as a MythTV system when I lived back in NJ. The bad news is that it is going to set me back a few hours doing the entire setup again.

I have heard reports of the images that are created over NAS getting corrupt after disconnects and such. Since my data is so critical, I will be backing up to 2 separate devices until Apple releases a fix. The great thing is, that Time Machine can work using multiple different drives. You just need to change your backup location when you switch devices and no you can’t use more then 1 at once.

I have been using Leopard for about 4 seeds now (Legally). Time Machine used to work over any AFP (including Airport Base Station), NFS and even SMB. When the end of October hit and Leopard was finally released, for unknown reasons Apple removed most of those features.

Now, in order for Time Machine to work your only options either direct drive connected or AFP to another Leopard client or server.

Although connection to another Leopard box via AFP isn’t bad, its doesn’t work for me. I own 2 Macbook Pros and a Linux server. I had originally planned on using the Linux box as my server for Time Machine. Since I already had AFP running, it would be easy to drop in a new volume for it.

The reasons for Apple doing this is quite unknown and really drives me nuts. Now, I am forced to do one of the following work arounds. None of them are very appealing, and none I have gotten to work yet.

1. Find work around for backing up over SMB or AFP. Although I would love this one to happen, I have yet to see any progress. AFP isn’t being actively developed, so there is an even less chance then SMB. The strange thing is, you can’t even mount a Tiger AFP mount which doesn’t make any sense. I wonder what they changed in the protocol.
2. Find a work around for Airport Extreme Base stations or a fix from Apple. There is a small work around for getting Timemachine to backup to it. However, the Time Machine interface doesn’t work with it and its unstable. I could put together some simple scripts to make sure my mount point is valid at all times I am connected to my LAN.
3. Install Leopard in VMWare. (I am not interested in talking about the EULA. I purchased a Family Pack and I disagree that Apple has the right to limit what machine you can install it on. Its like aftermarket parts) I have been working on trying to figure this one out. I can’t get the image to boot, been trying for a week now. I have posted on a few message boards, this is feeling like a dead end. To top things off, my Linux server is SSE2.
4. Similar to #3, I was thinking that I could purchasing an ultra cheap bare bones system to run it. It doesn’t have to be powerful, just needs to handle Time Machine and serve iTunes to my AppleTV.
5. The AppleTV is another cheap system I might be able to install it to. I don’t think it has SSE3, so it might be a serious problem. I have heard of getting Tiger to run on it.
6. Find very cheap G4 on craigslist, I haven’t been able to find much under $300. I am trying to do it for no more then $250. I haven’t had much luck with eBay either. Not to mention, I don’t know much about older Macs.

There is also the big issue of I can restore from Time Machine after these work arounds are put in place. Once I find a working idea, I am going to test it. My plan is to install Leopard to an external drive and backup to the network mount. From that point, I am going to delete my test partition. Will all my test data be there ?

I will try and post my progress.