Time Machine on any network share.md

Time Machine on any network share

Time Machine setup for OSX Mavricks on a shared file server (Linux, windows, etc.)

1. Find out the machine name of your Mac

    $ hostname
   

   It should be something like: yourname-mbp

2. Get the abbreviated MAC address of your Mac

    $ ifconfig en0 | grep ether | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/://g'
   

   Your result should be something like: 16ddb1d61f1a

3. Connect your Mac to the network share that you want to backup to. Examples:

   • smb://10.0.0.10/myshare
   • nfs://192.168.1.10/myshare2

4. Create a disk image on your Mac that will be your TimeMachine backup

    $ hdiutil create -size 500g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname "Backup of yourname-mbp" -fs "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" -verbose ~/Desktop/yourname-mbp_16ddb1d61f1a.sparsebundle
   

   • Make sure the machine name matches what you found out from #1
   • Make sure the MAC address matches what you found out from #2
   • You can customize the size by changing the 500g

5. Copy the .sparsebundle disk image from your desktop to your network share mounted in step #3. Get some coffee while it transfers over.

6. Double click the .sparsebundle file on your network share to mount it. You should now see a mounted disk called Backup of yourname-mbp

7. Tell your Mac that time machine should use your new disk image

    $ sudo tmutil setdestination "/Volumes/Backup of yourname-mbp/"
   

8. Enable Time Machine!

   • Goto System Prefrences -> Time Machine