Mac – Netatalk disk not shown in TimeMachine, manual connect via afp works

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I set up netatalk on Ubuntu to backup via TimeMachine to one partition there over my network. I can connect to the partition through the Finder Go... menue. But I cannot see an option to create a new folder. In TimeMachine this backup disk does not show up.

I tried using this Ubuntuusers' wiki page for netatalk v2 and using these instructions for netatalk v3. None works. I suspect a problem with my MacOS but don't know where to search. How can I make the backup disk visible to TimeMachine?

Best Answer

I've recently had the same experience. Netatalk exported a volume with time machine set to yes, I could mount the volume, but it would not show up in the Time Machine preferences panel.

From the Finder I tried to create a new file/folder and realized that I didn't have write permissions. Granting read/write permissions on the underlying volume on the file server then allowed Time Machine to find it.

The specifics of how to change permissions will vary but I changed ownership (chown) and permissions (chmod) on the mount point on the file server.

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I also use netatalk/afpd, backing to a USB-mounted drive. If I partition the drive on OSX first (hfsplus, no journaling), then mount it under Linux, chmod & chgrp it to the TimeMachine userID, and share with netatalk, then I get the same error you report (after "preparing backup", error is "Setting security information: Operation not permitted"), and backup fails every time.

However, if I stop netatalk, repartition the USB drive to a single EXT4 partition, mkfs.ext4, remount and chmod, chgrp, and share with netatalk, then I do not see this error and TimeMachine backups work fine.

I expect that the problem is userID/permission related, but since ETX4 is working for me, I have not pursued it.

Mac – Adding a Time Machine destination fails with OSStatus error 17

Digging through the console I found this telling error:

NetAuthSysAgent already_mounted: share <TIMEMACHINE> already mounted

TIMEMACHINE is my share name in this case. As the error suggests, Time Machine is trying to mount the share again which it can't do because it's mounted already. But wait! If I disconnect from the share will leave my list!

Here's where some weird UI trickery comes in:

Connect to the share using Finder
Open Time Machine preferences, click 'Select Disk', and then double click the disk at your desired address (in my case I wanted my FQDN). You should now be at the authentication prompt.
With the authentication prompt still open, go back to Finder and eject the share
Sign in to the waiting prompt

and the disk should be added! I've never had this issue before but it's come up on High Sierra which as it turns out has some really bad AFP/SMB bugs.

Best Answer

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