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No Airdisk (Airport) Time Machine Backups!

A@ron said:
Well thank me later :) I got it working fellas. It was there in front of our faces with the exception of doing a chown and chmod.

Someone else please confirm I will post steps.
1) disconnect airport disk and plug into computer as a USB drive directly.
2) Set up time machine to use this volume.
3) In terminal cd to volume "cd /Volume/HDD"
4) In terminal "touch .com.apple.timemachine.supported" this will create an invisible file.
5) In terminal "sudo chown root:admin .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
6) In terminal "sudo chmod 1775 .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
7) In terminal "ls -l -a" the .com.apple.timemachine.supported file should be -rwxrwxr-t
8) eject disk, unplug from mac, plug into Airport.
9) mount at mac using connect to server in finder (command k) and afp://airportname.local./HDname
10) see if time machine now sees the drive and tries to use it.
Click to expand...

I'm looking for more feedback on this system with computers you put to sleep often (like notebooks). I'll try it tomorrow after I get everything set up, but I'd love it if more people want to post. Do you have to reconnect manually after sleep? Or does TM continue to recognize it regardless? What about restarts?
 
A@ron said:
Well thank me later :) I got it working fellas. It was there in front of our faces with the exception of doing a chown and chmod.

Someone else please confirm I will post steps.
1) disconnect airport disk and plug into computer as a USB drive directly.
2) Set up time machine to use this volume.
3) In terminal cd to volume "cd /Volume/HDD"
4) In terminal "touch .com.apple.timemachine.supported" this will create an invisible file.
5) In terminal "sudo chown root:admin .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
6) In terminal "sudo chmod 1775 .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
7) In terminal "ls -l -a" the .com.apple.timemachine.supported file should be -rwxrwxr-t
8) eject disk, unplug from mac, plug into Airport.
9) mount at mac using connect to server in finder (command k) and afp://airportname.local./HDname
10) see if time machine now sees the drive and tries to use it.
Click to expand...

didnt work fer me =(
 
A@ron said:
Well thank me later :) I got it working fellas. It was there in front of our faces with the exception of doing a chown and chmod.

Someone else please confirm I will post steps.
1) disconnect airport disk and plug into computer as a USB drive directly.
2) Set up time machine to use this volume.
3) In terminal cd to volume "cd /Volume/HDD"
4) In terminal "touch .com.apple.timemachine.supported" this will create an invisible file.
5) In terminal "sudo chown root:admin .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
6) In terminal "sudo chmod 1775 .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
7) In terminal "ls -l -a" the .com.apple.timemachine.supported file should be -rwxrwxr-t
8) eject disk, unplug from mac, plug into Airport.
9) mount at mac using connect to server in finder (command k) and afp://airportname.local./HDname
10) see if time machine now sees the drive and tries to use it.
Click to expand...


Thanks very much for posting this -- I'll try it! I really hope it works.
 
Unbelievable!

This really makes me angry -- I can do this today using Super Duper! software and, indeed, it was a major selling feature of AE. This is a gaffe by Apple, pure and simple. And the fact that none of the major reviewers even pointed this out is also outrageous. I started to think I was losing my mind, and that they had not actually promised this feature. But someone found the Google cache on it, so it was definitely supposed to happen (and should happen!). I'm guessing it will be in a future release, but it's still a significant disappointment that it's not in the first round.
 
Aren't remote backups effected by building a sparse DMG? In which case there is no need for any particular filesystem features on the server. Though efficient random access of huge files is a must, one would hope that isn't a problem.
 
lapis said:
This really makes me angry -- I can do this today using Super Duper! software and, indeed, it was a major selling feature of AE. This is a gaffe by Apple, pure and simple. And the fact that none of the major reviewers even pointed this out is also outrageous. I started to think I was losing my mind, and that they had not actually promised this feature. But someone found the Google cache on it, so it was definitely supposed to happen (and should happen!). I'm guessing it will be in a future release, but it's still a significant disappointment that it's not in the first round.
Click to expand...

Apple probably wasn't confident yet that it had all the bugs fixed with this feature.

Keep in mind, people expect backups to be reliable. If someone found out that Time Machine is supposedly backing up to an AirDisk drive but isn't working when they need it most, they will flip. Then there will be a thousand posts on how Apple screwed up Time Machine because it wasn't backing up properly to AirDisk.

I imagine the first or second 10.5.x release will bring back the feature.
 
Reformat not necessary to enable/disable HFS+ features...

stomer said:
If this is true then surely it would take more than just plugging an AEBS disk into Leopard Mac for its FS to update. I would have thought formatting the drive would have been necessary.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. You can switch on and off Journalling on an HFS+ volume without reformatting. [1,2] Why not hard links?

[1] http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107249
"You can turn journaling on and off for disks on the server you are logged into by using Disk Utility or command line tools, with or without erasing the volume."

(NB: These instructions are for Server, which allows you to turn on/off Journaling in Disk Utility GUI. In Client, its missing from the Disk Utility GUI but you can still do it from Terminal)

[2] http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107248

sudo /usr/sbin/diskutil enableJournal /Volumes/MyDisk
sudo /usr/sbin/diskutil disableJournal /Volumes/MyDisk


FWIW, my recommendation would be :

- Plug in the disk directly to the mac
- Set it as your Time Machine drive and do a backup
- Yank it and stick it in the AEBS
- Reselect it as your Time Machine disk

Though, I dont actually have an AEBS to test this ;)
 
mungler said:
Not necessarily. You can switch on and off Journalling on an HFS+ volume without reformatting. [1,2] Why not hard links?
Click to expand...
Journaling and hard links are completely different things. Journalling is something you can actually bolt on to an FS. AFAIK, Journalling doesn't affect the way in which files are physically stored on a disk. Besides hard links are already supported in HFS+, e.g., ln myorignalfile myhardlink
 
mungler said:
FWIW, my recommendation would be :

- Plug in the disk directly to the mac
- Set it as your Time Machine drive and do a backup
- Yank it and stick it in the AEBS
- Reselect it as your Time Machine disk

Though, I dont actually have an AEBS to test this ;)
Click to expand...

This seems to work, according to several people.
 
What about backing up to network disks with TimeMachine?

It's not possible for me to connect my network disk to my Mac and do the initial backup as described in this thread.

In the earlier Leopard builds I could just do the "touch" command in Terminal on the network disk and TimeMachine recognized it.

This doesn't work in Leopard GM.

Anyone have any ideas how to get this to work?
 
its *multiple* hard links they had to put in.... as in multiple links to the same file. gah, i dunno, read the appleinsider article! ;)
 
MartinAyla said:
What about backing up to network disks with TimeMachine?

It's not possible for me to connect my network disk to my Mac and do the initial backup as described in this thread.

In the earlier Leopard builds I could just do the "touch" command in Terminal on the network disk and TimeMachine recognized it.

This doesn't work in Leopard GM.

Anyone have any ideas how to get this to work?
Click to expand...

The networked disk has to be running off of a Leopard machine.
 
DoreanGrae said:
The networked disk has to be running off of a Leopard machine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

I understand that, but it worked in the earlier builds, so there must be some sort of workaround (like the "touch" workaround in the other builds).
 
ChrisA said:
Now I'm glad I ordered Leopard through Amazon. I can cancel it. No
need to spend $109 if it is broken. I'll wait until Apple fixes it.
I can return the router for a refund too. If this is really true Apple
will look really stupid in the press.
Click to expand...

Apple knows about it and removed references to the router attach disks. Officialy that feature does not exist so there is nothing to get eggs about.

They will likely have it at the next patch, its logical and they intended to have it but ran into some problem.
 
EagerDragon said:
Apple knows about it and removed references to the router attach disks. Officialy that feature does not exist so there is nothing to get eggs about.

They will likely have it at the next patch, its logical and they intended to have it but ran into some problem.
Click to expand...
Damn you for being reasonable!

;)
 
EagerDragon said:
Apple knows about it and removed references to the router attach disks. Officialy that feature does not exist so there is nothing to get eggs about.

They will likely have it at the next patch, its logical and they intended to have it but ran into some problem.
Click to expand...

Yep. I assume that there had to be some sort of performance issue and that's the only reason it got yanked.
 
A@ron said:
Well thank me later :) I got it working fellas. It was there in front of our faces with the exception of doing a chown and chmod.

Someone else please confirm I will post steps.
1) disconnect airport disk and plug into computer as a USB drive directly.
2) Set up time machine to use this volume.
3) In terminal cd to volume "cd /Volume/HDD"
4) In terminal "touch .com.apple.timemachine.supported" this will create an invisible file.
5) In terminal "sudo chown root:admin .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
6) In terminal "sudo chmod 1775 .com.apple.timemachine.supported"
7) In terminal "ls -l -a" the .com.apple.timemachine.supported file should be -rwxrwxr-t
8) eject disk, unplug from mac, plug into Airport.
9) mount at mac using connect to server in finder (command k) and afp://airportname.local./HDname
10) see if time machine now sees the drive and tries to use it.
Click to expand...

Mark my words... This will not work reliably.

1. It's a hack.
2. Time Machine browser will not launch
3. You have to manually mount the Time Machine backup volume
4. It probably will (and most certainly will) cause problems when and if Apple implements the support for the AEBS/TM feature plug-and-play.
5. This is data backup we're talking about and hacks don't play well with the importance of your backup data.

This isn't a hack I'm about to employ even though I was beta testing this work-around some two months ago. This hack does not provide a stable TM product and user will be unhappy with the results.

Just some friendly advice...

DoreanGrae said:
Yep. I assume that there had to be some sort of performance issue and that's the only reason it got yanked.
Click to expand...

There's was no performance issue. It simply did not work reliably. Take that as backup data being compromised and TM simply not working as advertised.
 
I gotta side with bxs. Doesn't anyone here think that Apple didn't have a darn good reason for pulling support for this? Odds would seem to be pretty good that you'll run into whatever problem Apple found.
 
Nugget said:
I gotta side with bxs. Doesn't anyone here think that Apple didn't have a darn good reason for pulling support for this? Odds would seem to be pretty good that you'll run into whatever problem Apple found.
Click to expand...

This seems akin to saying you won't use a condom because they're only 90% effective. Yeah you can run into problems, but it's better than doing nothing and anyhow you should always use multiple forms of backup...

Apple isn't infallible, and does sometimes make decisions that seem purely marketing driven. Just look at the iPT. Would have been a great PDA if they hadn't neutered its ability to enter Calendar items...

B
 
balamw said:
This seems akin to saying you won't use a condom because they're only 90% effective. Yeah you can run into problems, but it's better than doing nothing and anyhow you should always use multiple forms of backup...

Apple isn't infallible, and does sometimes make decisions that seem purely marketing driven. Just look at the iPT. Would have been a great PDA if they hadn't neutered its ability to enter Calendar items...

B
Click to expand...

You're missing the point. You can use this hack and end up with nothing but corrupted data and a TM backup feature that's totally unreliable and probably useless.

I can confirm that this hack will create nothing but misery for you. I've been using this hack for over 3 months now and can say with authority - use at your own risk.
 
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