AFP / Time Machine

[Nelly111S]

I'm trying to use FreeNAS as a Time Machine backup, so that I can fit a new hard drive into my iMac and restore the backup. I have set up the AFP share and username so that my Mac, using Time Machine, backs up OK. It's been doing this quite happily for a year :)

I connected the Mac, did a backup, then opened it up and replaced the drive. The Mac works fine (I installed OS X again via the internet), but I can't restore my data.

If I boot into the Mac using a USB stick with the Recovery Disk software, it gives me the option to restore from Time Machine and the Mac can see the Time Machine partition just fine. When I connect to the backup, the FreeNAS console give the error message "afpd[3089]: dsi_stream_read: len: 0 unexpected EOF

I have tried both 8.2.0 and have now installed FreeNAS-8.3.0-RC1-x64 (r12617), but both versions exhibit the same problem. I suspect that this is a permissions error on the share, but it seems strange that I use the same password / username to connect to the TM share when I try to restore as I do when I backup.

I hope this explanation makes sense ...

 

[JaimieV]

I don't see that here, I recently restored a Mac from the FreeNAS TM share. That was with 8.0.4-release-p6, and Mountain Lion on the client.

Practically, can you simply put the old Mac HDD into a USB caddy (or the Mac, or another Mac and use Firewire Target Disk Mode), and use the 'restore from another disk' option?

 

[Nelly111S]

In the short term, I may put the old HDD into a USB caddy and restore on the new HDD that way, as you suggest. However, since FreeNAS is my Time Machine backup solution as well as file sharing with a couple of Windows machines, I'd like to understand what's going wrong. A backup that I can't restore isn't too much use!

 

[JaimieV]

Sure! But no need to wait on the real solution when you can get the Mac up amd running straight away, and then experiment.

Migration Assistant uses the same code to access the TM backup, so you can use that to test any changes you make at the NAS side without booting to the Recovery Partition.

My own is a simple AFP share of a dataset, with everything blank in its AFP settings except for Name, Path, "Disk discovery' ticked, and "DD mode: Time Machine".
The dataset is owner:tm, tm, rwxrwxrwx, Unix. The saved credentials I've set at the Mac end for TM to log in are actually my normal Apple ones, so maching the NAS' 'tm' user+password is not important here.

 

[Nelly111S]

I see, to have a difference between connecting in "normal" mode, which works fine and seems to back up with no problem, and connecting via Recovery Disk (USB). I'm getting a USB external caddy today, so I'll use that and investigate further.

 

[JaimieV]

The Migration Assistant application (in /Applications/Utilities) is not the same thing as connecting in normal mode for backups - the application is what I mean when suggesting using it to test. If you get Migration Assistant working, try the Recovery partition again to be sure.

Out of interest, does your Mac enter Time Machine recovery UI okay using the click-TM-menubar-item, Enter Time Machine command?

 

[Nelly111S]

Jamie,
The MAc does connect to TM recovery UI okay using the click-TM-menubar-item, Enter Time Machine command.

I sorted the problem, but I'm not sure how or why it worked. I tried to re-install from a Lion recovery USB (which worked fine, downloading a new copy from the 'net) then when asked, I migrated the info from the TM backup using the Migration Assistant as part of the initial setup. Apart from a slight faf with usernames, all went fine. I'm not sure what to do now - I really could do to sort this and I'm not sure I have time at present to do a backup and see if the restore works OK.

 

[JaimieV]

Since it has managed to do a recovery using the initial setup, I'd be ready to trust that method for the moment.

If you later get time to do an image backup and try out the Recovery restore again, all well and good. If you don't, then you can try it if the internal disk dies! You have a known good mechanism to recover if need be.

You may be interested to know that you can make an installable version of Lion or ML from the setup application - do a web search for "installesd.dmg" and check out the hints. This can save downloading it again just when you don't want to spend however long doing that...