SOLVED Can't backup on TimeMachine (AFP)

[Ragnard]

Hi all,

I'm new in the NAS activities and i'm learning from scratch each step to configure my own server.

I bought an HP Proliant N54L with 2x3To WD Red (Miroring == RaidZ1).

I want to do different stuff with my sever but 1st of all i would like to use it as a TimeMachine.

I follow the different advice I found like this one :

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Apple_(AFP)_Shares

But I still had some error (see screenshot).

Thank you in advance for the people who going to spend time with me ;).

I think I will be around this forum for the next months searching about advice (hope the community is nice ;) )

Ragnard.

 

[BigDave]

Please read this before posting
You must read the link and provide basic information
about your system so the community can help you.
Welcome!

 

[Ragnard]

Thks BigDave.

Where do I have to post my basic info ? In this thread or in my account info ?

 

[BigDave]

Your account info. Your signature will work for this
really well. It will appear in every post you make.

 

[Ragnard]

Like this ?

 

[BigDave]

Yes that's it. Now people who try to help you will know
your system's basic configuration for hardware and
the version of the FreeNAS software. Very helpful.

 

[BigDave]

I recommend you read this asap
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzHapVfrocfwc3VsQ3Y0eldFTHM/edit?usp=sharing

 

[jkh]

I want to do different stuff with my sever but 1st of all i would like to use it as a TimeMachine.

OK, just to provide a counter-point to all the folks directing you at thousands of pages of dubiously organized documentation which may nor may not be even relevant (learning how to set up your vdevs, for example, is probably not going to help diagnose an AFP connection error), here are some obvious things to try:

1. Check your console logs to see if you're running out of memory and the system is shooting down afpd; 4GB of memory is really close to "the bare minimum" for FreeNAS and many folks will say that anything less than 6GB is pretty much guaranteed trouble. When I test FreeNAS in VM environments, I don't even provision the VMs with less than 8GB of memory, so there may be something to this.

2. Check your console logs in general while OS X is trying to connect - just showing a screenshot of OS X with "Error 2" is not going to help anyone on the FreeNAS side. You want to look at the server side, not the client side, first. If you don't know how to even display your console logs, you might be a good candidate for the quick start guide.

HTH.

 

[BigDave]

OK, just to provide a counter-point to all the folks directing you at thousands of pages of dubiously organized documentation which may nor may not be even relevant

Since I was the only one trying to help this fellow, I think you just insulted me. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?

 

[jkh]

Since I was the only one trying to help this fellow, I think you just insulted me. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?

This has nothing to do with you, so I don't see why you would or should be "insulted" by contrasting advice. In point of fact, since you claim you were trying to help, I can only observe out that you haven't actually helped or addressed the guy's concerns at all. You pointed him at the posting guide rather than address his question, then you told him to adjust his signature to include his hardware info (neither of which were necessarily wrong, but again, not actually answering his question) then you pointed him at a 64 page, incredibly dense powerpoint presentation on ZFS configuration which, while something that definitely has its uses, will be of absolutely no help in diagnosing his AFP backup problem (I know, I've read that powerpoint presentation and am familiar with the AFP service code as well).

I usually don't even answer postings like this in the forums, but genuinely felt sorry for the guy given that nobody was actually answering his question, so I stepped in.

This is a technical forum, this isn't about personalities. What side of the bed I woke up on today is irrelevant, as are whatever feelings you may have about having the quality of your advice critiqued. If you offer bad advice, or no advice, you can expect someone like me to offer different advice, and there's nothing personal about that process. As I said, this is a technical forum and we have little time for niceties. If we see something wrong or we feel we can offer better advice, we'll do so and expect any rebuttals to stick to the technical merit or lack thereof in our advice.

 

[BigDave]

Little time for niceties Jordan, that's sad.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, to be honest BigDave, none of us are paid to be on this forum. So many of us would rather "get to the chase" than spend an extra hour a day in the forums cleansing our comments of anything that might be construed as offensive. I easily drop 2 hours a day in this forum every single day and have for almost 2 years straight. How big was my paycheck for it? I didn't get one.

At some point you just shortcut to the best and shortest answer rather than answer "that one problem" for the 50th time this year. ;)

 

[Ragnard]

WOW, I don't wanted to start a fight !

Just thank all of you to spend time "for free" in this forum. Time is priceless !

@jkh :
1- I read about the requirement for freeNAS. I plan to buy an other 4Go soon. But I don't understand why a NAS OS based on FreeBSD need so much RAM. On my Macbook or my other laptop with Linux Mint I don't need so much. I read it's about ZFS technology.
I have only +280Mo on my system so I definitely need an upgrade.

2- I just check the console log an I have permission problem.
see attach

 

[cyberjock]

No fight here.. at least not from me.

Why do we need so much RAM? Because that's how FreeNAS is designed. You can either take our word for it, not take our word for it, or dive into the code and see that the OS actually runs from a RAM disk which makes it very unique compared to FreeBSD. ;)

 

[rogerh]

I can't help with your permission problem, but I will tell you how I set up a Time Machine share on very similar hardware. I set up a new user, not otherwise existing on my network in the Freenas GUI, with a password and login. I set up a new dataset owned by that user and defined it in the GUI dataset setup as an Apple share and ticked the 'Time Machine' box. I then started the AFP service. I avoided sharing the same dataset via CIFS (which I also have running but using other datasets as shares). I then went to the Mac and opened Time Machine and navigated to the dataset I had set up for this purpose. I then put the name of the new special user and password in the Time Machine user dialogue box that popped up. Then it Just Worked! For my other Macs I set up a different new user and a different dataset for each. This approach avoided several pitfalls I had read about.

 

[danb35]

@Ragnard, this doesn't really answer your question, but you should be aware that mirroring is not the same as RAIDZ. Cyberjock's guide should explain this, but in short, RAIDZ or RAIDZ1 is roughly comparable to RAID 5 (the 1 indicating that it will tolerate the failure of a single disk without data loss). RAIDZ2 and RAIDZ3 will correspondingly tolerate the failure of 2 and 3 disks, with RAIDZ2 being similar to RAID6. Mirrors under ZFS are not described with a RAID level; they're simply mirrors.

With that out of the way, yes, you appear to have a permissions problem. Rogerh's procedure, above, looks good--it has you creating a dataset just for the purpose of this Time Machine backup, which will be owned by the user who is doing the backup, so permissions shouldn't be a problem. Putting the backup in a dataset also lets you limit its size, so it doesn't fill up your storage space.

 

[gpsguy]

btw, consider buying an 8Gb stick when you upgrade. I'm running 16Gb ECC RAM in my N54L.

I plan to buy an other 4Gb soon.

 

[adrianwi]

I can't help with your permission problem, but I will tell you how I set up a Time Machine share on very similar hardware. I set up a new user, not otherwise existing on my network in the Freenas GUI, with a password and login. I set up a new dataset owned by that user and defined it in the GUI dataset setup as an Apple share and ticked the 'Time Machine' box. I then started the AFP service. I avoided sharing the same dataset via CIFS (which I also have running but using other datasets as shares). I then went to the Mac and opened Time Machine and navigated to the dataset I had set up for this purpose. I then put the name of the new special user and password in the Time Machine user dialogue box that popped up. Then it Just Worked! For my other Macs I set up a different new user and a different dataset for each. This approach avoided several pitfalls I had read about.

This is pretty much what I was going to add. I've got a similar HP box (although my pool is RAIDZ1 and I have 16GB RAM) and backup 1 iMac and 2 MacBooks using TimeMachine. Each has it's own dataset, with a quota about twice the size of the internal drive. I'm using the same user/group as permissons and then use this user/password the first time you connect to the AFP mount. Just runs along happily in the background after that.

 

[Ragnard]

Thanks guys !
Especially @rogerh !

I setup a new ZFS dataset and give myself the permission. And now it's works well !

I kind of power user of a classical Linux distro (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, ElementaryOS), but it's my first time with a BSD OS, and first time with the NAS thing.
I'm not familiar with the dataset system, the jail... etc.

Next step, using OwnCloud with transmission and put it on my TV with Plex.

I think I'm gonna post a new thread soon ;).

PS : I bought 4Go, it's comming next tuesday.

Merci !

 

[danb35]

Great! Most of the differences you're dealing with are due to ZFS, which is simply different from most other filesystems/volume managers, so some of the concepts take some thinking through.

Give some thought to whether you want to use plugins or manually install the software you want in a jail (via ports or binary packages). The plugins, of course, offer pushbutton simplicity, but you don't have much flexibility in how they're configured, and you're relying on someone to update the PBI for you to get updates. If you're comfortable with a Unix-y shell, you'd probably be better off installing manually into one or more jails (I'd be inclined to keep Owncloud separate from Plex, and both separate from transmission/sabnzbd/sickbeard/etc.) Be aware that Plex is very resource-hungry--it regularly consumes 30 GB of RAM on my system when running a library scan.