Backup to FW drive on networked system

[dod488]

I've successfully backed up my wife's user files from her laptop to a sparse image on the system disk of my desktop box.

I really want to backup her data to a partition on one of my firewire drives and be able to smart update to it.

Both boxes are running 10.4.3 client. I don't want to buy more OS software for my desktop.

Suggestions?

Thanks, Hal

[dnanian]

Over a network, you can only back up to a sparse image, which can be smart updated. You can't copy directly to the partition unless you bring the drive to her machine...

[dod488]

Right. That's what the problem is. I want to place the sparse image on one of my external FW drive partitions which could be smart updated. Is there anyway that I can accomplish this? Is there a workaround?

Thanks, Hal

[dnanian]

There's no workaround needed -- you just mount the drive with AFP and then use the regular "Disk image" feature to store it on the mounted network volume, Hal.

I cover this in the User's Guide, linked as "Back up your Macintosh over a network" right on page 1...

[dod488]

OK, that's where I run into trouble. All my network connections have been through personal file sharing. I'll read up on AFP and give that a try when I get back from Christmas holiday.

There is no mention of AFP in the user guide. The section reads:

"To do this, mount the network volume, and then choose Disk Image... from
the destination pop-up. Then, select the network volume and folder where
you want to store the image, and name it appropriately."

Thanks for your help, Hal

[dnanian]

Personal file sharing is AFP, Hal. Your volume should be available when you try to connect to the networked computer.

[dod488]

Hi Dave,

I had been using the guest account. I had tried a standard user account before and hadn't gotten it to work.

I tried again with a standard account. Locally, I can see the FW drives through the standard account. But, when I access across the network all I can see is the user directories for that standard user, not the FW drives. I tried putting an alias to a directory on a FW drive in the standard user account directory. But, SD erred out. HDiutil indicated that it wasn't a directory or folder.

So, that's where I am right now. Thanks, Hal

[dnanian]

Try to make the ownership of the external volume your user, and make sure to not have "Ignore Ownership" on. Perhaps that will work.

[dod488]

The owner of the drive is my user. Owner, group, and other have read/write access. Ignore ownership is NOT checked.

Is there anything I need to do on the laptop to see the external FW drive? Anything tricky with Finder? Maybe I have an option turned off that I'm not aware of.

Thanks, Hal

[dnanian]

Not that I know of. I just used Cmd-k in Finder to connect to my user. I authenticated with my login for that machine, and was presented with a list of volumes mounted, including all FireWire drives.

[dod488]

Hi Dave. Back from visiting the inlaws. I've made some progress with this. I'm now using a shareware product called SharePoints. I can now see the directory on MY external FW drive from HER laptop. Permissions are set to r/w for her user. When I run the full backup to a sparse image, SD errs at the erase action. Here's the end of the log file:

| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock. New permissions are 33261
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/Makefile.global. New permissions are 33060
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/acinclude.m4. New permissions are 33060
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/mkdep.awk. New permissions are 33060
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/phpize.m4. New permissions are 33060
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/scan_makefile_in.awk. New permissions are 33060
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | Verify/repair finished permissions on disk disk0s3 Macintosh HD
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Mounting ShariBackup
| 03:32:07 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Preparing ShariBackup
| 03:32:57 PM | Info | created: /Volumes/sharibackup/ShariBackup.sparseimage
| 03:32:57 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Setting ownership and access modes for '/Volumes/sharibackup/ShariBackup.sparseimage'
| 03:32:57 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Mounting ShariBackup
| 03:33:00 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Erasing ShariBackup
| 03:33:00 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Preserving ShariBackup UUID
| 03:33:00 PM | Error | usage: SDDiskTool [-g] [-s] [-m] [-d] device | mountPath | UUID

Thanks, Hal

[dnanian]

Sounds like the sparse image isn't mounted when it gets erased, or doesn't get re-mounted quickly enough. Use Smart Update instead of erase-then-copy, and that should resolve the problem, Hal.