Snow Leopard and Time Machine on a network drive (AFP, SMB)

Based on materials on www.macosxhints.com

After the release of Snow Leopard, Time Machine “fell off” a well-known opportunity to work with network drives. As it turned out, the reason for this was the appeared binding of the backup copy to the UUID of the computer. Here are simple instructions to correct the situation.


First, you need to enable network drive support in the system. Execute the following command in the terminal:
')

  defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1 

Create a backup file (this is a .sparsebundle). Terminal again:

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

As a result, a file named backup.sparsebundle and a maximum size of 500 gigabytes will be created in your home directory. This does not mean that we will immediately receive a file in 500G (the image will grow as backups are created), it only limits the space allocated for backup (the file name and size are arbitrary).

Next you need to know the UUID of your computer. To do this, open the "System Information" (Programs> Utilities> System Information) and in the "Hardware" section, find the UUID (hardware UUID).

After that, create a file named com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist and with the following content:

 <? 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> YOUR_UUID </ string>
 </ dict>
 </ plist>

Only YOUR_UUID should be replaced with your real UUID.

You can also create such a file in TextEdit. To do this, use plain text (Format> Convert to plain text), when saving, set the desired file name (com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist) and confirm the specified extension (leave .plist).

The .plist file prepared in this way must be copied into the previously created .sparsebundle file (it should be done better with the help of the terminal). This is done like this:

  cp com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist backup.sparsebundle 

If you changed the name “backup” to another, then, naturally, you specify it.

(not for terminal experts) If both files (and .plist and .sparsebundle) are in your home folder, then everything will go as it should, if not ... Open the terminal, type cp (Latin), put a space, find in the Finder file com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist "and drag it to the terminal window (its address will be displayed), find the file" backup.sparsebundle "(well, or as you called it) and also drag it to the terminal window, run the command (Enter) .

You can check the result. If everything went as it should, then selecting your .sparsebundle and selecting the "Show package content" command from the context menu (right key), you should see your .plist file inside (in principle, you can drag it right here).

Then it remains to move the finished .sparsebundle to the root of the desired network drive (at least with a terminal, even with a finder) and connect it to Time Machine.

We connect the network drive (it is the network drive where the .sparsebundle lies, and not the .sparsebundle itself), open Time Machine and press the "Select disk" key, select the desired one in the list that appears. Everything.

Just a couple of tips. To avoid errors, the name of the network drive must be unique. Do not neglect the function of excluding files from the archiving process (there is not a lot of space when running Time Machine). But the frequency of backup is convenient to configure the program TimeMachineEditor.