#NETATALK TIME MACHINE MAC OS X#

Pull in the required packages: aptitude install netatalk avahi-daemon You will also require avahi-daemon to be installed and running, as mDNS / Bonjour is required for the volumes to show up in the Time Machine preference pane.

I can only really recommend the use of Netatalk 2.1 or above for Time Machine. It works with Samba but only in its unsupported configuration, and I ran into many issues when I used Samba – especially with backups becoming corrupted. You have to use AFP for Time Machine to be “supported”.

#NETATALK TIME MACHINE MAC OS X#

I am basing these instructions on Debian Squeeze and Mac OS X Snow Leopard as that is what I’m running, however it looks like Netatalk 2.1 onwards has the necessary patches to support Time Machine (these implement the afp_syncdir and afp_syncfork commands in AFP 3.2). The backup volume just appears in the Time Machine preference pane, and the Mac OS X Install DVD’s restore mode also can see and restore from the network volume. There is a way, though, to get Time Machine backing up to a Linux server without jumping through any hoops on the client. There are many guides on the Internet that deal with getting Apple’s Time Machine to back up to a network disk, however all of those that I managed to find rely on setting a hidden system preference to show unsupported disks – and hence don’t help with the problem of restoring from backup should the worst happen. I’m writing a new guide with Lion in mind but I haven’t got round to finishing it yet – the short version is: you need Netatalk 2.2 with its Avahi support built-in, and remove any manual Avahi service files you have created. Please note: This guide assumes you are using Snow Leopard.

Netatalk time machine