How To Make A Windows Time Machine Server

[AutoAym]

Hi Kevin.

First off, great article. You managed to find an (somewhat) elegant solution to a problem that i've been trying to solve on behalf of a friend for a few months now.
I tried downloading the pre-made appliance that you'd made as a solution, installed it with no challenges, got it up and running after i corrected the Network settings to get the VM to pair with my NIC, saw the TM share successfully on the Mac i'm trying to back, but when i try to connect to it with the tmuser/tmuser ID, i'm getting an error telling me i don't have the appropriate disk permissions to for it (i'll post the exact error when i get home)
Am i missing something blindingly obvious?

 

[kevinherring]

Thanks - yes, somewhat-elegant just about sums it up

I can't think of anything blindingly obvious, let me know the full error message and I will see what I can do.
Kevin

 

[AutoAym]

Hi Kevin.

Error message from my Mac:
"You do not have the necessary read, write, and append privleges on the slected backup disk. Please connect as a different user or contact your Network Administrator"

This was using the tmuser/tmuser credentials on the mac to connect to the TM share.
Any combination of root will just give me invalid PW shaking from the login box.

 

[AutoAym]

Hi Kevin.

Error message from my Mac:
"You do not have the necessary read, write, and append privleges on the slected backup disk. Please connect as a different user or contact your Network Administrator"

This was using the tmuser/tmuser credentials on the mac to connect to the TM share.
Any combination of root will just give me invalid PW shaking from the login box.

Also have been receiving this message window when trying to connect.

"Message from MyTimeCapsule:
Something wrong with the volume's CNID DB, using Temporary CNIB DB instead. Check server messages for details. Switching to Read-Only mode"

 

[kevinherring]

Hi, I think there might be a mistake with the downloaded appliance. Please try the following:
Log on to the VM with root/tmroot
type in chmod 777 /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData

then exit out and try again. I think the tmuser does not have write access to the storage directory. Let me know if it works and I will update the appliance.
Thanks
Kevin

 

[AutoAym]

Hi, I think there might be a mistake with the downloaded appliance. Please try the following:
Log on to the VM with root/tmroot
type in chmod 777 /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData

then exit out and try again. I think the tmuser does not have write access to the storage directory. Let me know if it works and I will update the appliance.
Thanks
Kevin

That did it.
Backing up successfully on my test box. Will try it with the real thing tonight and let you know how it goes, but it's looking good so far.
Thanks again for the work you put into this, Kevin. Much appreciated.

 

[kevinherring]

Brilliant! Let me know if it is successful and I will update the article.

 

[AutoAym]

Success!

That did it, sir.
Even followed the follow-up instructions to have it load the VM as a service on Windows start.
Worked like a charm once i remembered to adjust the firewall rules.

Thanks again for the article and the work. Very much appreciated.

 

[thiggins]

Article has been updated with a note describing the chmod fix and link to an updated appliance.

 

[Unregistered]

Change size of storage disk?

Hi, first i have to say: great work.

I am wondering if i somehow am able to get more storage space than 100 gb. Can you please go through the steps?

 

[kevinherring]

Sure, if you go into Settings-->Storage, select the MyTimeCapsule-disk2.vmdk.

Then on the right of the screen next to where it says SATA Port 2 there is a little disk icon. Click that and select 'Create New hard disk' and follow the wizard.

You then need to boot up the VM and follow the instructions regarding formatting the hard disk in Part 2 on page 1.

Let me know if you need more info.

 

[Slow]

Let me start off that I am relatively new to Linux in generally, but this solution is just too perfect sounding to pass up.

I have been having quite a few issues following any of your command lines that involve the echo command. For example, I just cannot get the following command to work in a seemingly proper way:

echo /dev/sdb1 /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData ext4 defaults 0 0 >>

If I type it exactly as it is, I get a bash error saying "syntax error near unexpected token 'newline'". If I leave out the carrots, it simply repeats everything after the echo command. Either way, I am not able to proceed onto the next step. Running the mount command afterwards usually results in an error saying "mount: can't find /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab".

Is there a step I am missing here or simply typing something incorrectly?

Thanks

 

[kevinherring]

Hi, I think there is something wrong with the formatting in the article. If you copy that whole code section into Word or something you will see that the line actually says:

echo /dev/sdb1 /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData ext4 defaults 0 0 >> /etc/fstab

But for some reason the html markup isn't showing it.

The two greater than signs mean that you a redirecting the output of the echo command to a file instead of to the screen and appending to the end of the file if it already exists (a single greater than will overwrite an existing file if it already exists.

Try that complete command and let me know.
Kevin

 

[pellet]

Thanks so much for this great tutorial

Unfortunately when I try to import the appliance I get this error:
Failed to import appliance C:\Users\eggers\Desktop\mytimecapsule_11_15_11.ova.


Im new to VirtualBox and I'm not sure what could be the problem other than that the updated file in the tutorial is corrupted or does not work with my current version of virtualbox - 4.1.6
Do you have any idea why im getting it?

 

[thiggins]

I have gone back through Part 2 and removed the system prompts to prevent truncated lines. Kevin, better give it another look to make sure that the edits are ok.

 

[kevinherring]

Pellet: I have double checked the appliance and it works on mine. I'll do some more checks tomorrow and see if I can find a problem.

Tim: I'll take a look.

 

[pellet]

?

I uninstalled virtual box 4.1.6 and installed the older version used in the tutorial - v4.1.2 but im still getting the same error...
Should I be able to import the appliance straight after installing virtual box?
I didn't install it as a service...
The error still is 'Failed to import appliance' which is a very generic error message, is there a way to make the error more verbose or to be able to check a log somehow?
Thanks!
-pellet

 

[kevinherring]

Hi Pellet, I'm afraid, as you say, that error message is too generic to do anything with. I'm not sure if it is possible to turn on logging.

Are you able to create a machine to see if that works?
Thanks
Kevin

 

[jc2532]

Appliance link broken

The link to the appliance file appears to be broken :/

 

[thiggins]

The link to the appliance file appears to be broken :/

Sorry about that. File was deleted during a recent server move. It's back up now.