How To Make A Windows Time Machine Server

[KeithXP]

Brilliant Kevin, thank you.

I couldn't get 'edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules'.... to work, but managed to change the file with 'pico /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules'.

At last, the TimeMachine backups to my WHS2011 - thanks very much indeed.

Keith

 

[kevinherring]

Sorry, by 'edit' I meant use nano/pico/vi as you worked out. Glad it worked.

 

[Unregistered]

adding larger disk

This seemed to work fine. But, when I mount on Mac, I get the following warning:

Message from Server
"MyhTimeCapsule"
Something wrong with the volume's CNID DB, using temporary CNID DB instead. Check server messages for details. Switch to read-only mode."

Any ideas? format and everything didn't seem to give any errors.

I think I know the problem. I should provide some proper instructions for increasing the hard disk. Let's begin:

1. remove the old disk image in VirtualBox (100GB on SATA Port 2)
2. Create a new disk image in VirtualBox and attach it to your VM again on SATA Port 2.
3. Boot the VM and log in with root.
4. type in fdisk /dev/sdb
5. type in o to create a new MSDOS structure
6. type in n then p then 1 and then accept the defaults to create a new primary partition
7. type in w to write your changes and then exit
8. type in mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 to format it to ext4
9. reboot

now when you type in df -h you should see an entry for /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData and time machine should work.

Hope this helps
Kevin

 

[Unregistered]

using a larger disk

This worked and the disk is now there (and I can login and play with it). But, when I mount on the Mac it mounts OK at first, but then this error comes up:

"Message from server "MYTimeCapsule"
Something wrong with the volumen's CNID DB, using temporary CNID DB instead. Check server messages for details. Switching to read-only mode"

Any ideas?

I think I know the problem. I should provide some proper instructions for increasing the hard disk. Let's begin:

1. remove the old disk image in VirtualBox (100GB on SATA Port 2)
2. Create a new disk image in VirtualBox and attach it to your VM again on SATA Port 2.
3. Boot the VM and log in with root.
4. type in fdisk /dev/sdb
5. type in o to create a new MSDOS structure
6. type in n then p then 1 and then accept the defaults to create a new primary partition
7. type in w to write your changes and then exit
8. type in mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 to format it to ext4
9. reboot

now when you type in df -h you should see an entry for /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData and time machine should work.

Hope this helps
Kevin

 

[landay]

increasing backup disk size

This worked and I was able to successfully increase the size of the disk and mount it. It seems to work fine when I look at it in the Linux VM. I can mount from my Mac, but a few seconds after mounting I get the following warning:

"Message from server "MyTimeCapsule"
Something wrong with the volume's CNID DB, using temporary CNID DB instead. Check server messages for details. Switching to read-only mode."

Which of course makes it no good for backups. Any ideas?

I think I know the problem. I should provide some proper instructions for increasing the hard disk. Let's begin:

1. remove the old disk image in VirtualBox (100GB on SATA Port 2)
2. Create a new disk image in VirtualBox and attach it to your VM again on SATA Port 2.
3. Boot the VM and log in with root.
4. type in fdisk /dev/sdb
5. type in o to create a new MSDOS structure
6. type in n then p then 1 and then accept the defaults to create a new primary partition
7. type in w to write your changes and then exit
8. type in mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 to format it to ext4
9. reboot

now when you type in df -h you should see an entry for /mnt/MyTimeCapsuleData and time machine should work.

Hope this helps
Kevin

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Can't see time machine volume?

Hi everyone

I have read through this entire thread but could not find any help in regards to my problem, so I will go ahead and post here.

I have successfully installed the virtual box and appliance. It is up and running but I can't see it from my Mac running Lion.

My network settings in the appliance are:

Attached to: Bridged Adapter
Name: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Adapter Type: Paravirtualized Network
Promiscuois Mode: Allow All
Mac Address: 080027818E20
Cable connected ticked.

This is a windows XP machine running SP3.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks so much.

 

[kevinherring]

Hi Landy, this was discussed on the first page. Please check there and if you are still having problems let us know.
Thanks
Kevin

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Giving it a try

Hi Everyone

Thanks for your work here Kevin.

I have managed to get everything up and running with another internal 750GB drive in my PC system.

I have two MacBook's backing up to my vitual time capsule now. The first has completed, it was only 15 GB of data and took around 2 hours. The second macbook has around 350GB of data and I am just starting that now and leaving it running over night.

I would like to know how everyone else has found their performance? My Macbooks will be backing up wirelessly most of the time.

I found on the first macbook that is was taking AGES to run its second backup which said x bytes of 3KB to be backed up... seemed a little strange...

Anyway I will report back in the morning about the 350GB backup.

Thanks again!

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Fail

Left them backing up over night and woke up this morning to a crashed virtual machine :-( It got about 23GB into the backup and that is when it appears to have crashed.

I am trying again, but any ideas as to why this is crashing?

 

[kevinherring]

hmmmm, this is very strange. Some thoughts:

I have only ever backed up to a network share so I have no grounds for comparison to a usb drive. However I found that things like you mention about only a few k getting backed up did sometimes happen but generally they tended to resolve themselves.
Performance wise, I found that the initial backup could indeed take a long time (very inconsistent) but once the initial backup was done it worked fine.

I must admit that I have never actually stress-tested the VM solution. I made assumptions based on previous use of Debian in virtualbox that it would be fine.

I am surprised it managed to crash the VM! Can you define 'crash'?

I'm afraid I can't think why it would stop after 23GB. Did you check the TM logs on your MB? They are in the console I believe.

 

[Unregistered]

Crashed my vm

My vm machine also crashed. I've set up everything with your package (thx for that!!), but created a bigger disk. so far so good, everything worked fine. but then suddenly the message "cpu not responding for 61 seconds" message in the virtual machine appeared.
then -obviously- TM stopped with the message "cannot connect to disk"

Now I'm running al this on a brand new APU setup so maybe the cpu is to weak?
I never meant to run a vm on it but I had to try this! just wished apple didn't make it so hard.

I've rebooted the VM and TM is running again. (8gb backed up from 240gb so far)

Maybe there is a way to automatically reboot the VM when it's not responding?
Also you have been running this for a while I assume - did you have any troubles? I mean a backup system has to be reliable, it just feels weird to use a virtual disk that's all

Gompje

 

[Gompje]

update last post

Just a post to say that the backup was successful
Long .. but it worked.

I also remembered that when I first backuped my dad's macbook on his mac mini with osx server (no special setup needed ) it also took almost 10 hours - which is the same. maybe there is something build in TM that it is slower over the network so it does not - mm how do you say that in english - block your network bandwidth ?

Gompje.

 

[ozum]

Great article. I need some advice.
I installed virtual machine. I can ping from and ping to virtual machine successfully. I use OS X 10.7.3 However when I try to connect from time machine I get a message:

There was a problem connecting to the server “MyTimeCapsule.local”. The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and try again.

When I try to connect via Finder by pushing “Connect As…” button I get a similar message:

There was a problem connecting to the server “MyTimeCapsule”. The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and try again.

I can connect the host windows machine from OS X, so it seems that there isn’t a network problem.

Any suggestion?

 

[kevinherring]

Hi Ozum

It is strange that ".local" is appended to the end of MyTimeCapsule.

In finder, can you try connecting with afp using the IP address instead of the name?

Kevin

 

[ozum]

Hi Kevin,

When I try to Go->Connect to Server and try to connect 192.168.1.100 (local IP of vm) it asks username/pass. It does not accept default password (root/tmroot). However I can login with default user and password via virtual machine's console without a problem.

 

[kevinherring]

Did you try tmuser/tmuser in Go->Connect to Server?

 

[ozum]

Thanks Kevin, tmuser/tmuser connects in Go->Connect to Server. After this successful connection, Time Machine asks for password for the first time and it connects as well.

I'm very new to Mac. Maybe these steps are obvious for others . I didn't see tmuser/tmuser anywhere. Can you please add tmuser and Go->Connect to Server steps into the article as a note for others like me

Some more info to be sure about I'm doing everything right. (Attached screenshot)

* In time machine, I can not connect auto found MyTimeCapsule on "MyTimeCapsule".

* In time machine, I can connect MyTimeCapsule on "192.168.1.100". I mounted this in Go->Connect to Server step.

* In Go->Connect to Server, When I try to connect with name instead of local IP, server can not be found.

My questions:

* Are those symptoms expected behaviour?
* Do I have to mount MyTimeCapsule prior to use in Time machine? Otherwise I cannot connect as described.
* How can I change root and tmuser passwords?

 

[kevinherring]

Hi Ozum, I will get Tim to add the tmuser/tmuser more clearly in the first article.

However, that said, you should not need to use Go-->Connect (ever) and I don't know why it isn't working for you... Installing Avahi should mean that you can see and then connect to the time capsule seamlessly.

Without sitting in front of it, it's very difficult to diagnose :-(

To change the passwords you will need to log into the VM within VirtualBox as root and then use the passwd command.

 

[ozum]

Do you have any suggestion to me look randomly or poke in for this situation. I have two systems (one fresh installed Mac Book Pro and one messed a lot hackintosh just for learning). Both have same symptoms.

 

[kevinherring]

Can you ping the VM or each other using only the machine name?

I assume all machines are sitting on the same local network at home or something?

The MyTimeCapsule icon appears in your Finder side bar right?

Does the 'other' client machine appear on each client machine (i.e. macbook on hackintosh and hackintosh on macbook)

Have you checked in the log files for TM on either client machines? You should be able to use the Console to view them and filter on TM (I forget the exact process and am not in front of OS X right now).