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kbyrd
Asked: 2009-06-21 12:53:10 +0800 CST

How do I backup a couple of macs to a Linux sever?

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I currently use rsync with --link-dest to get an incremental Time Machine-ish backup of few sources with a variety of operating systems to a single Linux box. I swap out the backup drive to an external site every so often. One of these sources is a mac and while rsyncing from the Linux box to the mac appears to work, it believe it isn't catching all the details of the HFS+ filesystem so I couldn't really do a full restore from an OS DVD if I need to. Also, it takes an awful long time to backup the mac compared to other sources with similar amounts of data and number of files. So, I thought I would use Time Machine for the macs and continue using rsync for the other sources. Is Time Machine the best way to do this? If so, what do I need to do on my Linux server to have it be a valid Time Machine target? If not, what do you suggest?

I know there are several (Time Machine to Linux) pages on the Net, but I thought ServerFault could use one.

backup linux mac incremental-backup time-machine

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Do it via a NAS share (samba or NFS).

    I use Time Machine to back up to a ReadyNAS (which runs Linux under the hood). Here are my notes on how to do so.

    Enable NAS backups:

 - defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Find MAC address of the machine to be backed up:

 - ifconfig en0 | grep ether | sed s/://g | sed s/ether//

Command to create sparsebundle to copy over to NAS:

 - sudo hdiutil create -nospotlight -library SPUD -size 160g -fs "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "hostname Backup" ./<hostname>_<macaddress>.sparsebundle

    You need to insert your hostname and mac address to fit. This setup has been working with no major issues for quite a while now.

    PS. You need to adjust the size of the volume. I have it set to 160GB as it's only backing up a Mac Mini.

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  2. You can configure to store the extended attributes of HFS+ in xattrs on the Linux fileserver with the -X and -A switches and the "fake super" functionality. This is working quite well, but you can use these xattrs only for restore to hsf+, especially ACLs are not usable on the linux side.

    I recommend to compile your own rsync though, or use DarwinPorts version, as the apple supplied version was never working really well (and I am not sure if things got better recently).

    see man rsync for the fake-super mode.

    I can't comment on the speed issue, but maybe a locally built version works better.

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  3. I have been successfully backing up my Macs to a Linux Server running CentOS via Samba by using SuperDuper! on the Mac. It has a smart update feature which allows incremental backups. The file it creates is not proprietary and can be used with Apple's Disk Utility.

    SuperDuper! - Can be downloaded and installed for free, and only need to purchase it if you want to use the smart update features: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

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  4. There is a step-by-step guide using avahi and netatalk at http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

    As far as I understand, compiling is not necessary. You can just do this:

    sudo apt-get install netatalk avahi
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