DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

the share (SMB, AFP, whatever) has to contain a dot-file named your eth0 MAC address (regardless of how you're connecting to the share).  this file contains a string that's the encrypted version of your volume name.  i haven't reversed this, so the easy way to make this is mount an external USB/Firewire drive with the name of the intended network share, select it as a time machine drive (then turn off time machine to prevent an actual backup) and copy that dot file over to the share's root.

the share must also have the ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" file in it's root.  easily created at the command line with touch. 

permissions don't seem to matter as long as the user can read them both.  also, your initial backup is going to be predictably slow depending on network throughput and backup size.   i haven't had much road-time with incremental backup loads/impact, but a cable attached to my laptop is not my future.  i want time machine to continue backing up whenever it discovers my NAS box on the network.

cheers,

.zero

Last edited by zero (2007-11-02 06:13:05)

That is great information and very much appreciated.

Any idea if you can use Time Machine to backup the NAS itself? I happen to have a second DNS-323 and would love to use Time Machine to keep my first one backed up to the second.

Very nice cybermike. I can't wait till the first backup is finished. Is there any news yet about the reason why apple removed this option?

Maybe this is a stupid question.  What about when I "need" to restore my whole machine using time machine.  If you boot off the Leopard installer there is a mechanism for restoring from a complete time machine, but I am doubting that will work from a network volume. 

I know this unsupported network mount will work for time machine is in, if your mac is operating and you want to get a previous version of a file, then yes you the whole network mount for time machine will work well.

The other thing I heard is that if the network mount that you are using for your Time Machine destination get unmounted or is otherwise not available, you may encounter silent data corruption because of the data not getting flushed out.

-X

Seen this one?
http://www.9to5mac.com/time-machine-fix … r-43262455

Bear in mind that, quite late in the release cycle, Apple disabled Time Machine access to remote drives.

If you are paranoid or even healthily cynical, you might believe that it's because they want to charge you money for the feature somewhere down the road.

But far more likely is that the feature didn't pass QC testing: that there's a stability or security issue.

I am not going to trust my critical data to over-the-network Time Machine until we hear more about why this feature was disabled.

Focher wrote:

Actually, it's not that Apple disabled the feature because the feature is still there. What they did is to set the default to disable the use of networked storage. Their reasoning is completely unclear. Could be, as you said, a quality / reliability issue. Could be a support issue. Doubtful it is an attempt to charge in the future, considering it's just a parameter change to the system.

As I understand Time Machine, the main technical change that Apple made to enable the feature is by adding symlink functionality for entire directories / subdirectories including the individual files. This allowed the more efficient usage of snapshotting the changes. This seems to be working fine even on networked storage, but you are right that people should understand the risk in using in undocumented / unsupported "feature".

You are right - they did not "disable" the feature, but they turn it off by default, and they provide no normal GUI for turning it back on,  and they don't provide any documentation as to how to use it -- that just has the feel of "not ready for prime time".

check in your airport extreame dhcp client list

I have been told that Time Machine only works properly with HFS+ formatted drives, not FAT32 as the DNS-323 uses.  Have any of y'all tried restoring from backups, or otherwise verified that TM on the DNS-323 actually works?

Thanks.

patrissimo wrote:

I have been told that Time Machine only works properly with HFS+ formatted drives, not FAT32 as the DNS-323 uses.  Have any of y'all tried restoring from backups, or otherwise verified that TM on the DNS-323 actually works?

Thanks.

Time Machine creates a disk image on the dns-323. This image is in HFS+.
However as Apple disabled the feature to store on NAS devices your milage may vary...

Speijk wrote:

I am using the DNS-323 as destination for my timemachine images now for two weeks. I am backing up 3 Mac's to my NAS drive now and It works fine!
The first backup took several hours, but the hourly updates only take a minute or so.

I have to ask the obvious question -- have you tested restore yet?

I hope this forum can help me.

my setup:
HP pc desktop backing up on DNS-323
Powerbook with Leopard trying to back up with Time machine on DNS-323

the DNS is connect to a Link-sys wireless router.

from the beginning I was able to see the DNS-323 and use Volume_1
then I use http://www.9to5mac.com/time-machine-
and I can see the Volume_1 on Time Machine but when start I have the error :

"The backup disk image could not be created."

I don't know why doesn't start.