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HOWTO make encrypted Time Machine backups to your ReadyNAS
I couldn't find a consolidated page of how to create encrypted time machine backups so after a fair bit of googling, here's the list I came up with.
I have a ReadyNAS Duo (although really any ReadyNAS which supports TM should work) and a Mac running OSX 10.6.3.
I have a ReadyNAS Duo (although really any ReadyNAS which supports TM should work) and a Mac running OSX 10.6.3.
- Set up the ReadyNAS to enable TM.
- On your Mac, goto System Preferences, Time Machine, Select Disk, and select the ReadyNAS. Enter the username and password when prompted.
- TM will create the drive, aka the sparsebundle, in the afp share, then count down after creation before actually starting the backup. You can stop the process here, or wait for a few files to backup then hit stop.
- In Finder, goto Go, Connect to Server, then enter afp://<servername>.local/ReadyNAS. ReadyNAS is the name of the afp share you specified in step 2. If it works, the share will show up on your desktop.
- Once mounted, open Terminal and run the following.
$ cd /Volumes/<AFP Drive>/
$ mv name_mac.sparsebundle name_mac-old.sparsebundle
$ hdiutil convert -format UDSB -o name_mac.sparsebundle -encryption AES-256 name_mac-old.sparsebundle
$ cp name_mac-old.sparsebundle/com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist name_mac.sparsebundle/
It will ask you for a password. Type in a password you won’t forget. - Double click the sparsebundle in Finder. You will be prompted for your password. Type that in and tick the “Remember password” check box.
- Open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access and find name_mac.sparsebundle. Right click it and select Copy name_mac.sparsebundle.
- Select System Keychain on the left hand side of Keychain Access and paste it in the main area. Allow this action if you are asked. Remember to lock the
- System Keychain when you are done.
- Time Machine should not have no problem backing up to the encrypted volume.
If everything works as planned, feel free to delete the name_mac-old.sparsebundle
7 Replies
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- The best part is you can copy the sparsebundle to an external drive and continue to use it without a ReadyNAS. One-off solutions which aren't fully supported are the last thing I want to deal with after a disaster. Knowing my backups aren't tied to a hack and/or a specific device lets me sleep easy.
- Nice how-to. Do you know if it works with the restoring onto a new hard disk from Time Machine procedure?: http://www.readynas.com/?p=1730
- I did a restore yesterday when I bought a new mac and wanted to restore my user profile from my TM disk. It worked as advertised; popped in my OSX CD, booted off of it, selected Restore from TM (or something like that), connected to my wireless network, selected the ReadyNAS from the list of TM disks, typed in the right passwords, and the restore completed without a hitch.
I'm in the process of reading my own HowTo to setup a new TM share for this new Mac. - Sorry to dig up this post, but it was really usefull.. Even at this time.
Everything works fine! :P
Thanks. - Glad to hear it! Everything is working as it should in Lion too. I haven't had to do anything special to make it work.
Once the maintenance release is out, I'll experiment with encrypted home directories and report back if that works too. - Got it working, sorry!
- I upgraded to Lion the day it came out and was suffering every since. Bugs are everywhere and infuriating. I decided to reinstall and migrate my files and settings using Migration Assistant and TM.
Long story short - restore would barf likely because afpd would go belly up. Console would report the mount went away. So, in case someone else is in the same boat, I simply copied /c/.timemachine/<bundle> to a fat32 formatted usb disk, and did a restore from there. Went off without a hitch, decryption and all.
I'll continue to use my DUO as a TM target, but this is the first time things didn't "just work". It's unclear why or how afpd went belly up. Im thinking this has something to do with the latest RAIDiator which was suppose to address TM and Lion.
Also, I noticed afpd (even over gigE) cannot read beyond 2MB/s. However, SAMBA (CIFS) can read/write at 20MB/s. Pretty staggering.
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