Mac OSX Time Machine drives on FreeNAS Server, Part 2

This post is a continuation from Part 1 where i demonstrate how to create a NAS based Time Machine backup drive for autonomous backups.

FreeNAS can be downloaded from this page, grab the iso file that is for your system. Installing FreeNAS isn't hard, there are two primary steps:

1. Installing from CD/DVD/USB
2. Setting up the Network interface

i found a good resource to be here, just keep in mind that FreeNAS doesn't have a LOT of the typical Linux commands available from the terminal. But this doesn't matter as FreeNAS is meant to be completely configurable from the Browser interface. Did you hear me?

This was the problem that many of the other tutorials, they were trying to setup FreeNAS partially from the terminal, partially from the browser interface and then partially from the Mac.

When you setup the FreeNAS network interface, it will tell you exactly what IP address it is and how to get to it from your browser (just type in it's IP address). You'll be presented with this login screen.

The default login credentials are: admin, freenas and you can change that from inside the browser interface.

Step 1, plug in the external drive you want to use. It doesn't have to be preformatted or anything, FreeNAS can do all that from the browser interface. For this example i am going to use my old 150GB HDD.

Step 2, from the browser interface, go to Disks -> Management we need to add the external drive we just plugged in to FreeNAS.

Step 3, select the plus (+) symbol on the right. In the drop-down menu to the right of the bold Disk label, select the disk you just plugged in. If there are no other drives plugged into the FreeNAS server, it should be labelled da0. NOTE: the ad0 drive is the OS disk, don't select that drive.

Step 4, next add a description (optional) and select the power management options you prefer. i have mine setup to have the HDD go to standby after 5min and am using "Level 1" in the Advanced Power Management field. If you have issues with your drive, alter these settings.

Step 5, finally for the part of adding a drive, leave the Preformatted file system field as "Unformatted". We will format it shortly. Click Add at the bottom and when the screen refreshes Apply changes (don't forget to do this!!!!!).

Step 6, to format the drive, from the browser interface select Disks -> Format. Select the drive that you just added, use the default UFS filesystem and select Format Disk. You'll get a lot of geek crap, info dump below.

Step 7, now we need to add a user account that is allowed to access this drive. We don't want to use root, that would be a security atrocity. i made mine the same as my Mac user account for ease. From the browser interface, select Access -> Users and Groups and select the plus (+) symbol on the right. Fill out the Username/Full User's Name/Password/Password confirmation fields, the defaults are fine for the rest of the form. Click Save.

Note: if you are going to have several drives for several MBP like i am, you should add a user for every single MBP that will access the FreeNAS.

Step 8, from the browser interface, select Disks -> Mount Point and select the plus (+) symbol. Change is the Disk field by clicking the drop down menu and fill in the Mount point name field. This name is how the drive will be named in the folder hierarchy.
In the "Access Restrictions" area, select the drop down Owner field and change this to the user account you created in Step 7. The Group field should also match that of the user account created in Step 7.
Click Save then Apply changes (don't forget to do this!!!!!).

Step 9, next we need to turn on the AFP service on the FreeNAS server. From the browser interface, select Services -> AFP and check the Enable box. Rename the FreeNAS server if you like, verify the Enable guest access. box is checked, then click Save and Restart.

Step 10, next we tell the FreeNAS server that the drive we just mounted is a "Share" to be accessed over the network.
From the browser interface, while still on the Services -> AFP page from Step 9, select the "sub tab" Shares. Select the plus (+) symbol on the right.

Step 11, adding this share is where everything gets linked together: the user account you just made, the drive and the AFP service.
Fill in the Name, Comment, and Path fields, where the Path is the name of the Mount point name from Step 8.

Step 12, pay attention! You MUST place the username that will access this share in the Allow field (i would only have one listed). Click Save all the way at the bottom of the screen. Click Apply changes when the page refreshes (don't forget to do this!!!!).

Please wait for Part 3 (not active yet), where i will show you how to setup the Time Machine side of things.