How Do I Backup My Mac? - Solutions Inside

[spatialguru]

Modern Mac hardware (e.g. Macbook) doesn't support remote network booting using the PXE protocol that Amahi's backup process supports. However, there has been mention of some sorts of mini Linux distributions that I could boot from then point to the HDA to do backups. Someone mentioned the SystemRescueCD as an option but I can't figure it out. So I thought a thread here address methods for backup of Macs might help.

Of course, I can always use a Samba share and manually (or with a script) copy files over to the HDA, but that defeats the purpose

[bsk]

There are some backup solutions for Mac, but mind you, when Apple had backup in mind, they didn't have the end user in mind haha.

SystemRescueCD does boot and everything on a mac, just select the cd when you boot up. (Hold option when you hear the mac boot up sound and then select the cd when the list of devices show up) then follow the steps. This requires PBA to be installed, which is a one click application. Then the steps will be located at http://pba .

Note this does take some time (especially depending on your drive size) as it does not compress it, it copy's it outright. And there is also not progress bar, so make sure you don't need it and have it plugged up.

Other solutions are available on the wiki page http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Backups#Mac_OS_X.

And I just bought my first mac, so Im trying out some more solutions as well to add to the list.

Hope this works for you.

[moredruid]

you can also use rsync to backup your files (use cron to schedule them or add a job to the shutdown scripts).
and you can go the hardcore way and set up iSCSI and backup using time machine on a "local" iSCSI disk (which is nothing more than a logical volume on your server).

I've gone the last route since Time Machine just works and does its stuff in the background when the system is turned on this is the most unintrusive for the end user.

[cpg]

hey moredruid ... long time no see!

shall we assume you configured your HDA as an iSCSI target?

(damn advanced users ... always pulling these stunts ... )

[moredruid]

yup, set it up and works for about 6 months fine now. So it's safe to call it stable

Server side: set up an iSCSI server on the Amahi box:

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root@host# yum install scsi-target-utils

set up 1 Logical Volume (LV) that will be exported as an iSCSI LUN. The below output shows my LV created for time machine (hence the name lvtime).

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root@host# lvs | grep time lvtime vg00 -wi-ao 500.00g

export the LV: add it to /etc/tgt/targets.conf (note that there's a convention on how to export these!)

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<target iqn.2010-08.local.bonabo:galileo.lun1> backing-store /dev/vg00/lvtime </target>

start the iSCSI target daemon and make sure it starts at boot time:

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root@host# service tgtd start; chkconfig tgtd on

check the exported LUN(s):

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root@host# tgt-admin -s

Client side: I installed globalSAN iSCSI Initiator for OS X by Studio Network Solutions (free community supported) iSCSI client for OS X) on the Mac.
I configured it to "see" the iSCSI lun (just type in the iqn IIRC); since it's presented to the OS as a normal disk you need to partition the drive first (it's a blank disk as far as the Mac is concerned). Then configure Time Machine to use that disk and you're done!

P.S. I may have forgotten a few steps, it's been a while

[cpg]

awesome! captured in this iSCSI wiki page.

[luvmnky2]

Needs to be updated for Snow Leopard v10.6.7, apparently Apple changed something, and this procedure won't work. I couldn't find one that did.

[luvmnky2]

Update: CrashPlan does a good job backing up the files on the Mac; if I had a total loss I'd have to reinstall the OS, and then restore the files, but for me that's no big deal.