How to make time machine volumes hidden

[Stephen Rogalla]

Hello i have a Freenas server running on a HP Server with the following specs
12gb ram
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz
7TB hd space
Running the following build FreeNAS-9.10.1 (d989edd

I have 8 mac users all of whom which backup to a 3tb time capsule. Ultimately I would like every user to backup to their own freenas network volume without the ability to view each other's volumes or have access to them over the intranet. I have created AFP volumes(is CIFS better for this if so why?) for each of them, created local accounts and passwords. When a user ie. Scott browses for a backup volume through the time machine interface the other users volumes appear as an option, can that be hidden from the user so that Scott only see's Scott's volume as an option? Also when i try to copy the backup from the existing time capsule i am unable to write it to Scott's freenas volume so that he can inherit it later. Any suggestions or help would be great thanks in advance.

 

[danb35]

No idea about migrating the backups. Time Machine, by default, will only back up to an AFP share (last I looked, it was possible to hack on it to make it back up to a CIFS share, but it wouldn't do it by default), and there's no reason to use a different share type.

I'm not sure if it's possible to completely hide shares from other users. I suspect it isn't, because of the way network shares work--first you pick the server, then you select the share, then (if needed) you authenticate. It's certainly possible to hide the contents of those shares, though. There are probably several ways to do it, but here's what I do:

I have two Macs backing up to my FreeNAS box: mine and my wife's. Each has its own dataset and its own AFP share. Each dataset is owned by a user account I've created only for Time Machine purposes. My share is owned by me-tm, and my wife's is owned by wife-tm. Permissions on each share are set to 700. When I use the Connect to Server dialog in the Finder to connect to the AFP shares on my FreeNAS box, I can see the wife-tm share, but I can't see its contents.

 

[Stephen Rogalla]

@danb35 thanks for the quick response, when you say the permissions are set to 700 what does that mean or where can i attempt to make those changes? When you boot your mac and your wife's mac do you have to connect to the afp share each time?

 

[danb35]

700 is UNIX shorthand. It means the owner has read/write/execute permissions, and nobody else has any permissions. No, I don't need to manually reconnect after reboot.

 

[Stephen Rogalla]

Do you have your permissions shares setup for mac or unix?