SOLVED: Time Machine back up to unRAID server


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I can't back up my mac with time machine. It says "Time Machine could not complete the backup.The backup disk image ".....sparsebundle" could not be created." (error45)

 

Help me out

 

I think whatever share you backup to has to be mounted via afp and not smb.  So you might not be able to use time machine.  I know for a fact that I can't select any of my smb mounted volumes.

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I can't back up my mac with time machine. It says "Time Machine could not complete the backup.The backup disk image ".....sparsebundle" could not be created." (error45)

 

Help me out

 

I think whatever share you backup to has to be mounted via afp and not smb.  So you might not be able to use time machine.  I know for a fact that I can't select any of my smb mounted volumes.

 

Google for "timemachine smb"

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Ok guys. I got it working now. YES... took me about 2 full days to make it work. I tried so many other guides out there but no luck trust me I tried every guides out there. Including unpluging the ethernet cable while processing the backup lol. Anyway, Here is the only guide that help me out. I got it from http://www.jordanpeterson.me/node/118  By:Jordan Peterson. I know It's long but trust me it's very easy guide. I love unRAID server so much that decided to help out the community.  ;D Follow step by step you will get it work. Let me know. Good Luck...

 

Manual Time Machine Image Creation:

 

You'll need to create a Time Machine Image and copy that image into the remote share, or else Time Machine will begin backing up and fail every time. Since the site I pulled an automated shell script from is not coming up at the moment, I'll list out the manual approach. Pull up a Terminal (on the MAC, not the Linux box) again and type out a command using the following guidelines:

 

sudo hdiutil create -size g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname "[Volname]" -fs HFS+J -verbose ~/Desktop/[computer_name].sparsebundle

 

The above Mac command line needs your input. Here is an explanation of what the elements are that need your input:

 

= Size in Gigabytes that the backup image can grow to. Obviously, the image size should be more than the Mac hard drive. In my case, my Mac drive is 160G. I chose 250G backup image size. The bigger, the more increments you'll have back in time to restore from.

 

[Volname] = Name of the backup image

 

[computer_name] = the verbose name of the computer. You can find the name of your Mac by clicking Apple menu in upper left corner, System Preferences, and Sharing.

 

In my case, the following image creation line worked for me within the Terminal:

 

sudo hdiutil create -size 250g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname "Mac Book Pro mb0 backup" -fs HFS+J -verbose ~/Desktop/mb0.sparsebundle

 

This line will create an image called mb0.sparsebundle on my Desktop.

 

We then want to copy the newly created image to the shared volume.

 

cp -rp ~/Desktop/[computer_name].sparsebundle /Volumes/[share]/

 

Where [computer_name] is your computer name.. mine is mb0.. Basically the file you created.. We're copying it over to the mounted share, which you've given your share a name.. We'll call it share for purposes of this guide. While you're typing the above line, when getting into the section called "/Volumes/", you can hit tab a few times and a few names will come up as suggestions.

 

Once the image has been copied over, you'll want to create a file within the image directory that you just created.

 

nano /Volumes/[share]/[computer_name].sparsebundle/com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist

 

Again, [share] is the name of your share and [computer_name] is the name of your computer. Nano is a text editor.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress</key>
<string>MAC_STRING</string>
<key>com.apple.backupd.HostUUID</key>
<string>UUID_STRING</string>
</dict>
</plist>

copy everything and paste into the Terminal where you've ran the nano editor on the newly created file. You'll need to change two lines in the file before you save within the nano editor. The first thing to change is the MAC_STRING to match your machine. I was able to get this by running in another terminal window:

 

ifconfig en1|grep ether

 

Where en1 is the device I'm using, as I am using the Wireless card, not the wired network. Copy and paste everything from after "ether".. This is the MAC Address. Put this in newly created nano editor file that you have open where it says "MAC_STRING".. That line now should now read <string>00:11:22:33:aa:bb</string> or similar. The next thing to change is the UUID_STRING. You can find this under Apple Menu, About this Mac, click More Info..., and there should pop up an entry in the list on the right saying Hardware UUID. Copy and paste this number in place of the UUID_STRING in the file you're editing. Once done, hit [Control]+[x] to edit the nano editor. Hit [y] to save, and [enter] to confirm the file.

 

Open up a Finder window.Click GO from the upper menu bar and Connect to Server. Type in smb://[ip]. [ip] being the IP address of the Ubuntu machine. Click Connect.

 

Open Time Machine. Slide the slider to ON. Click Select disk. From the list, click your share and click Use for Backup.

 

Time Machine should backup!

 

 

Let me know if it's working...  ;)

 

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Have you done a restore from that share, i.e. boot with the Mac OS install DVD, call Terminal, mount network share, notify Finder, back to install program and point to Time Machine restore volume?! Works with AFP only (could imagine probably NFS too) however SMB isn't available as part of the install DVD procedure. Using AFP a restore like this works from an "unsupported" NAS works like a charm. I am using a Qnap NAS for this and it provides AFP. There are guides on how to install AFP on unRAID though, just browse the archives.

 

Another solution would be to do a regular OS intall, run software update and then use Migration Assistant to move everything from the Time Machine share (on whatever sort of share it is), takes more time though.

 

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Another solution would be to do a regular OS intall, run software update and then use Migration Assistant to move everything from the Time Machine share (on whatever sort of share it is), takes more time though.

 

A question on this part since I don't really use Time Machine as I've been too lazy to get it working over the network and was waiting for unRAID 5.x, but this looks interesting.

 

Do you actually need Migration Assistant? Can't you just install OS X, run the software update and then tell Time Machine to just restore everything? Is there a restore everything option?

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You can't full update the disk from which you are running the OS. You either boot from CD (or another bootable HDD) and then full restore the system disk from Time Machine, or use Migration Assistant to migrate *some* data (typically user data) from a Time Machine volume to the disk you are running the OS from.

 

I would typically boot from install DVD media, open terminal, mount share, tell Finder that there is a new mount, quit Terminal, return to GUI and select the Time Machine folder to perform the restore from to the system disk. This would be a complete disk restore, like after a failed drive or so.

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I'm confused, what do you mean you can't update the disk you're booting from? I understand it can't move/update system files but you're not doing that. ie, Install OS X onto your machine, run Software Update. Once that is done you boot into Time Machine and tell it dump everything back.

 

I thought the point of Time Machine was to recover all of your data in different points in time. If it won't let you do that, then whats the point of Time Machine?

 

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I'm confused, what do you mean you can't update the disk you're booting from?

 

I said "can't full update the disk from which you are running the OS" and full update means everything including system files. And yes, you can start TM and pull some user data files, no problems at all if that is what you want.

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  • 1 month later...

@starcat: is that the way you would restore a Time Machine backup:

http://www.dbattery.com/2008/07/18/timemachine-restore-from-nas/

 

@unbeatable: isn´t your description for Leopard? I recently installed a NAS in a Snow Leopard environment following this way (the main difference is that Leopard needs the EthernetID and Snow Leopard deal with the hardware UUID:

 

1.) Create a disk image named the same as your machine's computer name (not sure that this is crucial; you can find it in System Preferences » Sharing). This example is for a 500GB (max size) image for a machine named snowy: ?

 

hdiutil create -size 500G -fs HFS+J -volname 'Time Machine Backups' -type SPARSEBUNDLE snowy.sparsebundle ?

 

2.) Create a new text file, and copy and paste the below code. inserting your machine's hardware UUID in the noted spot -- you can find your hardware UUID in System Profiler. Save the file on your Desktop as com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

    <key>com.apple.backupd.HostUUID</key>

    <string>YOURUUIDHERE</string>

</dict>

</plist>?

 

3.) Copy the modified com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist file into your disk image directory:

 

cp ~/Desktop/com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist snowy.sparsebundle/

 

4.) Copy your disk image file to your mounted backup volume. This example assumes an AFP share with the name

 

backups: cp -pfr snowy.sparsebundle /Volumes/backups/snowy.sparsebundle

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@EdgarWallace, the link you have posted for restoring from a TM machine on a NAS is the right one. This is when the NAS is not "supported", i.e. the Mac OS X install disk doesn't see it as a TM volume and thus it needs to be mounted manually and the finder notified. I have done it several times (with an AFP share) and this procedures is very easy and works very well.

 

And you are right, there is a small difference between how Snow Leopard and Leopard handles the images on the NAS to be used with TimeMachine.

 

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