MacOS X 10.7 Time Machine Backup to FreeBSD Server with Netatalk

UPDATE : This documentation still works, but it uses netatalk version 2 and is more complex than using version 3. Please consider using this documentation using netatalk version 3 instead. 

If you backup your MacOS X 10.6 machine to a netatalk server, then you may have found that MacOS X 10.7 cannot backup to the same machine. Apparently, the major reason why it's now broken is a lack of « replay cache » which was introduced in AFP 3.3. So what you need to do is upgrade netatalk to version 2.2.x.

UPDATE : I've successfully this setup with MacOS X 10.8 and 10.9.

Let's configure a FreeBSD machine to serve as a Time Machine target for MacOS X 10.7. I'm using FreeBSD 8.2 as this is the production version. If you prefer using a Linux machine, then take a look at this blog post by Steffen L. Norgren.

First, install the latest version of netatalk

sudo portsnap fetch
sudo portsnap extract
cd /usr/ports/net/netatalk
sudo make install clean

Then, create a directory where your backup will reside. I use the /export file system, but you can obviously place your backup anywhere you like. Just make sure it doesn't fill your root, /usr and /var partitions.

sudo mkdir -p /export/backup/drobilla

Set the permissions to the same user on both your MacOS X and FreeBSD server. To find out what's your user ID and group ID on your MacOS X machine, open up Terminal and issue the id(1) command:

id
uid=501(drobilla) gid=20(staff)

Create these same UID and GID on the FreeBSD machine and set the new user's password.

sudo pw groupadd -g 20 staff
sudo pw useradd drobilla -u 501 -g 20 -d /usr/home/drobilla \
     -s /usr/local/bin/bash -c "David Robillard"
sudo passwd drobilla

Then set the permissions to the backup directory.

sudo chown drobilla:staff /export/backup/drobilla

Now configure netatalk. This is done by editing several files:

1. /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.default
2. /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.system
3. /usr/local/etc/afpd.conf
4. /usr/local/etc/netatalk.conf

5. /etc/rc.conf

Let's start with AppleVolumes.default.

sudo vi /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.default

<AppleVolumes.default>

# /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.default

#

# See /usr/local/AppleVolumes.default.dist for more information.

# There is only two lines in this file.

:DEFAULT: options:upriv,usedots

/backup/drobilla "Backup David" allow:drobilla cnidscheme:dbd options:tm volsizelimit:300000

# EOF

</AppleVolumes.default>

Then the AppleVolumes.system is actually an empty file. So just create it with the touch(1) command. For more info on this file, check the /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.system.dist file.

sudo touch /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.system

Now we configure AFP.

sudo vi /usr/local/etc/afpd.conf

<afpd.conf>

# /usr/local/etc/afpd.conf

#

# Again, see /usr/local/etc/afpd.conf.dist for more info.

# This file has a single line.

- -tcp -noddp -uamlist uams_dhx.so,uams_dhx2.so -setuplog "default log_info" -cnidserver 127.0.0.1:4700

# EOF

</afpd.conf>

And the /usr/local/etc/netatalk.conf file. Note that you can change your ATALK_NAME to something other then FreeBSD. This is the name that will show when you will connect via your MacOS X machine.

sudo vi /usr/local/etc/netatalk.conf

<netatalk.conf>

# /usr/local/etc/netatalk.conf

#

# See /usr/local/etc/netatalk.conf.dist for more info.

AFPD_MAX_CLIENTS=20

ATALK_NAME=FreeBSD

ATALK_MAC_CHARSET='MAC_ROMAN'

ATALK_UNIX_CHARSET='LOCALE'

AFPD_GUEST=nobody

CNID_CONFIG="-l log_note"

# EOF

</netatalk.conf>

And finally, we must edit our rc.conf file to enable the new daemons. Note that there is quite a lot more in the rc.conf file, but I've just listed the ones required for the purposes of this blog post.

sudo vi /etc/rc.conf

<rc.conf>

afpd_enable="YES"

atalkd_enable="NO"

cnid_metad_enable="YES"

netatalk_enable="YES"

</rc.conf>

Optional: now we need to tell syslog to send all AFP related messages to the afpd.log file. So add those two lines at the end of the syslog.conf(5) file.

sudo vi /etc/syslog.conf

<syslog.conf>

!afpd

*.* /var/log/afpd.log

</syslog.conf>

Be sure to restart syslog to enable those changes. But first make sure the file exists.

sudo touch /var/log/afpd.log

sudo /etc/rc.d/syslogd restart

And make sure this new file gets rotated so as to prevent it from growing too big. Add a single line to the newsyslog.conf(5) file.

sudo vi /etc/newsyslog.conf 

<newsyslog.conf>

/var/log/afpd.log root:wheel 640  7     1024 *     J

</newsyslog.conf>

Then you can start your netatalk daemon:

sudo /usr/local/etc/rc.d/netatalk start

Be sure to check the system's log to see if everything has started as it should. This is also a good place to check when clients connect to the AFP service.

sudo tail /var/log/messages

That's it from the FreeBSD side. Now take your MacOS X 10.7 machine and connect to your FreeBSD machine. To do so, hit Command-K and type your FreeBSD server's IP address.

afp://192.168.1.2

At the prompt, enter the user name and password that we just created on the FreeBSD server.

You will see a list of shares that we configured in the /usr/local/etc/AppleVolumes.default file. Select the Backup David share. It will be mounted.

Now open up the Time Machine preferences and select a disk. You should see your new FreeBSD disk there. Select it and run the backup.

HTH,

David